Energy GPA in Student Neighborhood

The University of Dayton houses almost 90% undergraduate student in on-campus residence. The university charges a fixed amount to every student for a semester, that amount covers the utility bills for that semester and no penalty charges even if they waste energy. This may lead to unnecessary use of energy like turning light on when the residence is empty and setting the thermostat set point constant every time. These behaviors can be controlled if an incentive is offered to the students that motivate them to use energy efficiently. This is possible in UD due to unique nature of university housing with separate gas and electric meter. A mathematical model is developed in R-software using the historical electrical and gas usage data from utility provider DP&L and Vectren respectively. This model helps to disaggregate the weather dependent and weather independent energy use. The actual energy use is compared with the baseline, heating and cooling energy use of the student residence. A report card is developed to provide the student with the feedback about their energy usage status and their residence’s energy saving level in the student neighborhood. This energy performance report card is sent to every resident via email which contains energy grade for natural gas, electricity and overall energy grade, residence rank in student neighborhood for energy saving, winning residence, and tips for improving the energy grade in the successive months. The residents of the winning residence are awarded a t-shirt and an article of the winning residents in a flyer news as a part of this program to incentivize them. After the implementation of this program, 5 to 10% of carbon emission saving is achieved through natural gas saving and some carbon emission saving in available from electricity saving due to change in student behavior toward energy use.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/2406/thumbnail.jp