School of Environmental Sciences Sustainability

This page is maintained by Andy Biggin

Useful Info: Electricity Consumption

The University electricity and energy use is rising year on year (3% per year on average) and in the last 25 years electricity consumption has more than doubled. Reducing unnecessary consumption of electricity will play a major role in reducing the university's carbon footprint and this is something that we can all easily contribute to.

Activities for reducing electricity usage are fairly obvious, the key is in doing them regularly:

Get into the habit of turning lights off whenever a room is not being used (unless it is used for access).

Last thing at night, get into the habit of walking around your area and switching off all printers, monitors, and other inactive appliances and equipment even if they are on standby.

Try to use electrical heaters and air conditioning units as sparingly as possible and close all doors and windows while in use. Rooms should not be heated above 21 degrees Celsius, or cooled below 24 degrees Celsius. If it is too hot, please don't just open the window! Turn off radiatiors Phone the FM helpdesk on 43000 to notify them of inadequate or over-heating. Although they may not be able to fix it immediately, FM are more likely to invest wisely in improving heating efficiency if they are kept informed about the problems. Ensure that radiators are not blocked by furniture.

Tell your Sustainability Advocate if you notice anything wasteful that you can not rectify but that the school or university may be able to.

Ensure that all PCs you use have the PowerMan or PowerDown energy saving software (or equivalent if not an MWS machine) enabled. Read about these here.