Behave 2018 saves
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This document summarizes a study on engaging university students to reduce energy usage. It found that student housing consumed significant amounts of energy and emissions annually. Competitions between dorms showed potential for energy savings of 6-30% by targeting key behaviors like lighting and electronics. The study introduced an energy dashboard and competition across 5 EU countries to provide feedback and incentives. Analysis found consistent long-term savings of 8% from simple actions. Dashboards appeared to offer more opportunities for savings, but more research is needed on maintaining behaviors beyond student housing and varied university contexts.
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Behave 2018 saves
- 1. Richard Bull Neil Jennings Joanna Romanowicz Marina Laskari Competing priorities: Lessons in engaging students to achieve energy savings in universities.
- 2. Why students & Universities? • Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) consumed 7.9 billion kWh of energy and produced 2.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions (HESA 2014). • Students as a distinct group of consumers, many of whom were living away from home for the first time and adopting new energy-usage behaviours. • Research has shown potential for savings between 6.4% (Sintov et al 2016), 16% (Senbel et al. 2014) – 20% (Alberts et al. 2016) & 30% (Peterson et al. 2007). • But typically these are short term & single building case studies Theinvisibilityofenergy
- 3. Introducing & • IEE funding April 2014 – March 2017 • Brings together Student Switch Off campaigns in 5 EU countries • Competition within/between dorms to see who can reduce their energy usage by the greatest amount or have the lowest usage per student (electricity meter data) • Dashboard developed to feedback results from electricity meters • 7 partners in 5 countries (UK, Cyprus, Sweden, Greece and Lithuania) • SAVES 2 follow up funding (moving out of halls and tackling fuel poverty)
- 4. The competition • Builds on existing social relationships, peer- to-peer communications, rivalries and communities • A fun approach to raising awareness amongst students with feedback and prizes to provide incentives for action • National/international winner • We focus on 6 main energy saving behaviours that Students have control over • An energy dashboard
- 6. Methodology • Calculating Energy Savings – For each dormitory building there was pre & post intervention electricity data – Electricity consumption data for academic year 2014/2015 – Electricity consumption data for academic year 2015/2016 • Quantitative and Qualitative data on behaviour – Pre & post intervention questionnaire surveys (15% sample achieved – 1358 matched survey responses – Retention of behaviours (16% sample achieved - 98 responses) – 3 Focus groups (53 students) • Energy dashboard use – 3 Focus groups • Control group in Sweden
- 7. Energy use and savings per country
- 8. Figure 2. Increase of energy awareness (2014-2016) Increase of Energy Awareness
- 10. Energy Dashboard Use • Preferred comparisons to be with 'halls' near them • Increased social media functionality • Regular alerts • Discussion forums & greater interactivity
- 11. Conclusions • Consistent long term savings (8%) can be made through simple actions. • But enablement is key . .. • Dashboards appear to offer increased opportunity for savings – but further research is required • The University research context is rich, heterogeneous and requires more attention • As does the continuation of student behaviour beyond halls (SAVES2)
- 13. Questions? (& further reading . . . .) • Bull, R., Jennings, N., Laskari, M., & Romanowicz, J (In Press) Competing priorities: Lessons in engaging students to achieve energy savings in universities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. • Bull, R., Lemon, M., Everitt, D., & Stuart, G. (2015). Moving beyond feedback: Energy behaviour and local engagement in the United Kingdom. Energy Research & Social Science 8 32-40 Website: www.saves-project.eu Contact: rbull@dmu.ac.uk Twitter: @richbull
Editor's Notes
- Welcome. My name is . . . Here to talk about findings from an EU funded project investigating how we can engage students in energy efficiency initaitive in halls of residences. A well worn subject in many ways – but, as you will see, the scale of the project warrants attention. The context . . .
- We're familiar with this problem – the invisibility of energy. For students it's even more real: Students pay a fixed rate Energy wastage – over 30% in UK (University of Sunderland) Insufficient awareness on energy saving amongst young people This may lead to… very large bills when students move out to private accommodation! Previous research has explored the role of competitions in halls of residence for students and savings between 5 & 20% have been recorded, though not necessarily sustained. This research is unique in the scale of its reach.
- SAVES - Students Achieving Valuable Energy-Savings – is an inter-dormitory energy-saving competition that has run in over 450 dormitories in 17 Universities housing 25k students in five countries over the academic years 2014/15 and 2015/16 (50,314 students in total over 2 years). The project will focus on students as a distinct group of consumers, many of whom will be living away from home for the first time and adopting new energy-usage habits. SAVES will provide quality engagement with students, enabling, empowering and motivating them to save energy – focusing specifically on the last stage of the ‘Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action’ framework. By developing student champions in each block of each dormitory, and by motivating the champions to encourage their peers to save energy, we will create a race between students in dormitories, each competing to save the most energy and win prizes. We will tap into online student communities through social media, using engaging digital communications to raise awareness of how students can save energy in a fun way. Smart meter data to run real-time energy challenges, inform students how much energy they are using, and encourage peer to peer learning and international cooperation through a virtual twinning scheme. We aim to deliver 8% average electricity savings in participating dormitories by students reducing their electricity usage by an average of 84kWh/year (0.035tCO2e per student per year1), saving 4.23GWh (1,902 tCO2e) over the two academic years of the project. The project aims to install energy-saving habits in students at a key moment of change in their lives so that when students move out of dormitories into private accommodation, they carry forward the energy-saving actions and achieve additional savings of 2.85GWh (1,284 tCO2e) by the end of the project.
- So the project focused on key behaviours: Switching off lights and appliances Lids on pans Putting jumpers on Opening windows before A/C – relevant in the hot EU countries – not the UK!! A dashboard was brought in the 2nd year.
- The dashboard was brought in year 2 (15/16) Students could switch between their own University, and seeing how they compared internationally.
- A mixed methods was adopted. Electricity data from all of the halls Surveys – 821 responses from 29k students in the final year (2.5% response rate) ENERGY SAVINGS Monitored data for 2015-16 was collected and compared to the baseline data to find out how much energy was saved during the academic year that the Student Switch Off campaign was run and could therefore be attributed to the energy saving actions performed by students. Analysis was performed at project level, country level, and at dormitory provider level. Analysis of a control group located in Linkoping, Sweden, was also performed. Where dormitories were electrically heated or cooled, degree day analysis was performed. Where data for a month is missing or erroneous, it was extrapolated based on the average of the data available for other months.
- Obviously the data from the questionnaires is self-reported. But we have the electricity data as well . . . Baseline energy data was collected from each of the seventeen dormitory providers at the start of the 2014-15 academic year. The data collected was from September 2013 through to June 2014 in the majority of the cases; in dormitory providers where SSO was run in years prior to 2014-15, the baseline was formed from the year prior to the campaign starting. Throughout 2014-15 and 2015-16 data were collected for each of the participating dormitories and compared to the baseline data to find out how much energy was saved by students through their energy saving actions. Where dormitories were electrically heated or cooled degree day analysis was performed. In a small number of cases were data for a month was missing or erroneous, it was extrapolated based on the average of the data available for other months. For the majority of dormitory providers eight months’ worth of data was compared, in a few dormitories nine months’ worth of data was used. In 2015-16 energy savings were fed back through the energy dashboard developed by project partner DMU. In this report energy savings are presented in kilowatt hours (kWh saving) and as percentage savings (% saving). The data is also converted into carbon dioxide (tonnes CO2) through using country specific carbon conversion factors. The chapters below present overall savings, per country, and per dormitory provider. Data from the control group are also presented.
- All students in participating dormitories were encouraged to complete an incentivized online baseline survey (pre-intervention) at the start of the academic year, and a follow-up survey (post-intervention) closer to the end of the academic year. Only students that responded to the baseline survey could participate in the follow-up survey in order to be eligible for the pre- post- comparison evaluation. The survey was circulated in all the participating dormitories and in the control group in Linkoping, Sweden. Almost one third of total respondents lived in dorms of their current dormitory provider/university the previous academic year. At country level this is mostly the case for Cyprus (73%), Greece (67%), Lithuania (60%) and Sweden (59%). These residents are more likely to have heard of or been involved in Student Switch Off the previous year. For 93% of the respondents in the UK this is the first year that the students are living in dorms of their current dormitory provider /university. The findings of the questionnaire survey analysis are indicative of the impact that the Student Switch Off campaign has had on students and that has led to the reported energy savings. Out of the six targeted energy saving actions an increase is observed in the frequency that the less known energy saving actions are performed, namely putting a lid on pans when cooking and boiling only the right amount of water. The changes are statistically significant for both behaviours. In individual countries significant increases in frequency that an energy saving action is performed are found that a lid is put on pans when cooking (in Cyprus and Sweden) and that the right amount of water is boiled with the kettle (in Greece and the UK). And what does this equate to in terms of savings? See next slide.
- Findings here are based on two focus groups in the UK and Cyprus Positive feedback on the idea of a dashboard, but findings back up previous findings that suggest students want to see comparisons with neighbouring halls
- This Europe-wide project shed further light on the role and potential of student-led campaigns, underpinned by practical action, and competitions with neighbouring dormitories that led to sustained energy reductions. Whilst other interventions have shown greater savings, this three-year project across five countries provides clear evidence of consistent electricity savings of 7% across a large number of universities through simple behaviour changes. Out of the six targeted energy saving actions, a statistically significant increase was observed in the frequency that students state they performed the less well-known energy saving actions, namely putting a lid on pans when cooking and boiling only the right amount of water in both years. In the first year of the project a significant increase was observed in the frequency that electronic appliances are turned off as well. On retention of behaviours, 68% of the respondents no longer living in dormitories said that when living in dormitories their awareness on how to save energy had increased as a result of information/posters/messages students received from the Student Switch Off campaign. The fact that 99% of those who had taken action to save energy as a result of SAVES stated that they were still carrying forward those actions six months later when living outside of dormitories adds weight to the argument that this is a fruitful time to engage with students to encourage pro-environmental behaviour change. Competing priorities will continue to be a theme for students in their future lives and careers, as it is for all of us at whatever stage we find ourselves. Difficult choices remain as convenience, comfort and careers threaten to erode our commitment to more energy efficient life choices that may require sacrifice in order to live more lightly on this earth. The students studied as part of the SAVES project though do provide some hope that long-term energy efficiency is possible given the right conditions.