NC State Shuts Down

Continuing its commitment to the environment, North Carolina State University will set back the heating and lighting systems for more than 200 buildings over the holiday break in an effort to save a substantial amount of money and reduce the amount of carbon being expelled into the atmosphere.

Facilities Operations will turn down the thermostat for the time period between Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009, and Monday, Jan. 4, 2010.  The university is asking employees to do their part before they leave for the holiday break by making sure all office equipment in their department is turned off and unplugged.

This is the fifth year of the setback program at NC State University.  To date, the program has resulted in savings of $850,000 and 48 billion BTUs of energy, enough to power about 700 average American homes.

Building systems will be set back enough to ensure maximum energy conservation while not putting facilities at risk of damage, such as freezing.  Temperature adjustments will mainly impact classroom buildings, dining halls, teaching labs and residence halls.

To the right is a chart of total CO2 emissions avoided so far during this program.