The North Campus Resources Battle, a competition comparing the current energy consumption of the residential halls on North Campus to that of previous years, has shown the difficulty of reducing energy consumption in freshman dorms.Energy Usage on North Campus

Planned and executed by the Engineers for a Sustainable World, the objective of this battle is to “focus on getting the idea [of energy conservation] across to freshmen,” said Hywel Wong ’11, ESW vice president of events.

While the competition design was originally intended for Greek fraternities and sororities, after further consideration, ESW chose to institute the program on North Campus. By focusing on largely freshmen-inhabited dorms, ESW hopes not only to instill better habits regarding energy conservation among new Cornellians, but also to raise more publicity for the club and its events.

Rising rates of energy consumption may place the efficacy of the program in question, however, as only two of the 13 residence halls on North have been able to reduce their consumption compared to that of previous years. Although awareness of reducing energy consumption is the primary goal of the resources battle, Wong is skeptical as to whether the battle will actually decrease energy consumption in the long run.

“Most dorms have increased their energy consumption, partially because there are more [freshman] residents [living on North Campus this year as compared to previous years],” he said.

To calculate the energy consumption of each residence hall, ESW members receive weekly energy consumption data from the utilities manager of the University. Then, the readings are converted into an energy consumption percentage using an appropriate conversion factor. ESW does not use the exact number of residents per dorm, which would present the data more accurately, but ESW members argue that such a calculation is irrelevant.

“Even if we normalize by number of residents, there will be large differences between some dorms, [as some] are newer and [some are] older, and we can’t compare dorms to each other,” Wong said.

“The dorms are competing against themselves,” said Jocie Kluger ’12, ESW vice president of membership and publicity. Each residence hall competes solely with the previous statistics of the building collected from 2005-2008 from the months of October to November. This is a crucial part of the process, as different buildings consume varying degrees of electricity due to different electrical designs. For example, Kluger noted, each resident in the Ecology House, a former hotel turned residence hall, has a personal shower, which generally results in longer showers and more energy consumption than the residence halls with shared showers.vice president of membership and publicity.

In order to make the energy comparisons as fair as possible, “We take into account the different energy footprints of [each] building in the same period of the year,” Kluger said.

Those residence halls with a percentage smaller than 100 percent as listed on the Individual Energy Usage Progress Weekly Update boards posted in RPCC, Appel Commons and online, are using less energy now than in previous years, while those with a larger percent consumption have exceeded previous years’ energy use. Currently, the Townhouses are leading the competition with 87 percent energy consumption compared to that of previous years.

While energy consumption among many North Campus residence halls continues to rise, ESW maintains its instruction of freshman on simple energy-saving methods.

The easiest way to reduce energy consumption within the residence halls is to turn off lights in the bathroom — or other common areas such as lounges and study rooms — when they are not in use, according to Wong.

ESW will continue to publicize the resources battle with the hope that people will learn more from the competition and will conserve more energy in the future. By recruiting freshmen to help plan such events, Wong also hopes to generate more interest for future years.

“We have a bigger team working on the resources battle this semester. [Also] we have a lot of help from freshmen,” Wong said.

The final results will be announced at the end of this week, though the environmental impact of the competition remain to be seen. Regardless of the exact numerical outcomes, ESW hopes that the club’s efforts have influenced the habits of Cornell freshmen.

“We want people to know that [changing energy consumption habits] is something that everyone can do. [Saving energy] affects our carbon footprint,” Wong said.