Measure Energy Better to Manage Energy Better

global warming

and climate change have become issues

that require our immediate action

we know that we have to use more

renewable energy and even though

technological advancements have

made renewables slightly less expensive

there are still various financial and

geographical barriers that prevent

us from using renewables at large scale

but that said we now have access to a

whole lot of

more energy efficient machines than we

did in the past so

that should technically keep us good in

our fight against

climate change right yes but sometimes

energy efficiency can be a paradox

usually when it becomes

cheaper to use a commodity we are likely

to use it more often

for instance if our cars become more

efficient at burning fuel

we are or in other words if it becomes

cheaper to drive

we are likely to either make more trips

or

make longer trips or both and if we keep

doing that

there comes a point where we would have

consumed more fossil fuel than we did in

the past

over a given amount of time now doesn’t

that actually beat the purpose of

fighting climate change right but just

because

we do not have access to renewable

energy

at the price that we want it doesn’t

mean that there’s nothing else we can do

up until that point

what we can do is to strive

towards reducing our dependence on

non-renewable energy

and one of the starting things that we

need to do

to reduce our dependence is to simply

measure our energy consumption

on a regular basis because as the old

saying goes

what gets measured gets managed right

when i started working as an energy

engineer at my university

i was a part of an energy conservation

project it was actually a competition

and we know that uh sometimes

competitions

can be great motivators to uh to to

doing great things

right this competition was not very

different from that

the idea was simple measure

the energy people consume and convey it

to the people

but make it fun and make it competitive

at my university we measure the energy

consumed by each building

throughout the year and on my campus

students live in buildings that we call

residence halls

in 2018 we picked a four week period

and we calculated the total energy

consumed by each residence hall

during that period this became our

energy baseline

and then in 2019 in the same four week

period

we challenged the residents of each of

these buildings or the students that

lived in these residence halls

to consume less energy than they did in

the previous year

that’s it that was the gist of uh the

entire competition

and the building that had the highest

reduction

uh won the competition the students that

lived

in the the building that won this

competition got prizes

related to sustainability um and i can

tell that without

getting into a whole lot of maths and

formulas and conversion

in just four weeks this project this

competition had a

massive positive impact

and it was fun because students kind of

got involved in the

the whole competition they got engaged

uh in the dialogue about climate change

and energy conservation

um on the other side we knew uh

how much energy each building saved we

knew how many students lived in each

building so therefore we were able to

calculate

the savings that each student was

responsible for on an average

and then we were able to also convey the

broader impact

that this competition had in terms of

carbon emissions greenhouse gases etc

etc

these competitions are not

anything new they’ve been done in the

past but my concern

is that they’re not done enough they’re

not done

often but the thing is that

competitions like these should be easily

replicatable

right that said i do

understand and recognize that uh

the competition that we had was based on

the fact that people live on campus and

maybe

um on your college campus students don’t

live

on site so does that mean that this

competition cannot be replicated to your

college

no that’s that’s not the case

maybe in in your college uh

buildings are occupied by different

departments in which case this

competition could be a

an interdepartmental competition when

departments

one two and three compete against each

other and

they also compete against departments x

y and z

um or maybe this could be a first-year

students versus second year students and

so on and so forth i think

there are various ways to get creative

with this competition to apply it to

your specific university and your

specific

college sometimes

starting a competition could seem

daunting and that’s fine

in which case the least we could do is

install one energy meter per building

and

convey the energy consumed to the

students

some awareness is better than none right

and it’s very important to get students

involved because

students of the present are going to be

leaders and

policy makers and decision decision

makers

in the future and therefore it’s very

important

to get students involved in a dialogue

surrounding climate change

and energy conservation now maybe you’re

not a student

what do you do then

that’s a good thing that’s a good

question to ask um

this could in fact be taken to a next

level

to a next step and this competition

could actually be a community-wide event

let’s say that you live in an apartment

complex that has

i don’t know five blocks uh blocks a b c

d and e and let’s say that each block

has five houses

now in that case there’s no uh necessity

to even install

meters because um each house

already has an energy meter each house

already receives

uh a monthly bill with a little bit of

initiative

this could actually become a housing

complex energy conservation competition

whatever i want to call it right and in

fact um

a housing related competition could have

much more

uh savings than an educational

institution

could have in that short amount of time

um

i recognize that uh the climate crisis

that we have on hand

requires a whole lot of attention

requires a whole lot of effort

so if none of what i told you applies to

you the least

that you can do that i can do as an

individual is to compete against

myself you can compete against yourself

what we can do is look at our energy

bills and say this month i got this much

next month to the best of my abilities

i’m going to try

and consume less energy maybe it could

be on a monthly basis

on on an annual basis whatever the

period applies

uh to you so all it takes is to

just get started and we could start

small

it doesn’t have to be anything elaborate

it doesn’t have to be anything

big we just have to start small

and measure our energy consumption

and that could take us a long way and

and like i said remember

what gets measured gets managed thank

you