Student Switch Off – The Results!

This year's Student Switch Off (also know as the 'Beer and Curry Competition') has just ended another year of great success. This is the fourth year we have run a competition where each student residence block competes against the others to reduce energy consumption over the academic year. As in previous years the winning blocks have won a free meal and drink for all (i.e. the Beer and Curry…), but this year we teamed up with a national campaign called Student Switch Off so there were additional prizes of ice-cream and tickets to SU events to be won too.

The winning blocks were Wolfson on-campus and John Wood KB off-campus, and the results were an improvement even on the previous years' fantastic efforts. Overall the competition has contributed to a saving of 10% of electricity use compared to 3 years ago, a saving of 380,000 units of electricity. This equates to a financial saving of over £30,000, but also clearly has an environmental benefit – a reduction in our annual carbon footprint of over 200 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of over 100 houses' electricity bills, or driving a car 28 times around the planet.

This competition is just one part of the University's activities to reduce its energy bills and carbon footprint. We have invested heavily in metering systems in recent years and now have 800 gas, water, electricity and heat meters throughout our Estate, of which 600 are on our automated real-time monitoring system. We are building more efficient buildings and refurbishing our existing ones to the highest standards – we have just opened the BREEAM Excellent 4 West which will have the first use of a novel German 'concrete-cool' ventilation system in the UK. We were the very first University in the UK to go through the Carbon Trust Higher Education Carbon Management Scheme, and have just signed up to the process again for this year to revisit our approach in the light of some very challenging government targets. We were a key partner in the regional ‘Our Big Energy Challenge' initiative, and are now taking part in the ‘Degrees Cooler' behavioural change programme.

The overall results are that electricity use is down by 9% in 3 years saving £317k and 1360 tonnes CO2 annually. Taking account of additional new buildings in this period the actual trend is about 15% down, £510k and 2185 tonnes CO2 saved every year, equivalent to about 1300 houses. We have been recognised for our efforts and have recently been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard, the key UK standard for Carbon Management.

Relevant links :

http://www.bath.ac.uk/estates/energy/

http://www.studentswitchoff.org/

http://www.bath.ac.uk/accommodation/green/competition/index.shtml .

Competition Facts & Figures

On-campus

Saved 47,172 kWh (1.77%) compared to last year i.e. 2% down on last year, which was 3rd year of running the competition.

9% down on 3 years ago = 250,000kWh = £25k = 135tonnes CO2

There has been a reduction each year on the previous year

Winners = Wolfson

Reduced consumption by 7% compared to the same period last year, a reduction of 5951 kWh = 3 tCO2

Off-campus

This year's competition compared to last year saved 58,817 kWh (4.5%)

10% reduction over the past two years 132,046 kWh

Winner = John Wood KB

Reduced consumption by 7.5% compared to the same period last year a reduction of 1847 kWh = 1 tCO2

Overall…

In 1 year: residences have reduced by 110 000 kWh = £10k = 60 tCO2

In 3 years: total saved = 380,000kWh = 10% = £35k = 207 t CO2 = 100 UK houses worth = 700,000 miles in a car = 28 times around the world = to the moon and back and there again …