Sullivan Hall Wins Energy Competition

Sullivan Residence Hall has been announced as the winner of the first-ever “Do It In the Dark” energy competition. Over the past eight weeks thirteen residence halls competed to see who could conserve the most energy. Sullivan Hall has won an enhancement to their common area. The specific prize will be announced after the holiday break.

The Energy Management and Sustainability offices partnered with University Housing and the Sustainability Committee of IRC to bring this competition to campus. The winner was determined by taking the total kilowatt hours (kWh) used during the eight-weeks and dividing it by the number of occupants in the residence hall. The result is the total kWh per person. Sullivan won with 194.25 kWh/person with Lee coming in second at 203.19 kWh/person and Carroll was third with 222.01/person.

The “Do It In the Dark” competition is a program of the new awareness campaign “Change Your State.” The friendly competition helped to raise awareness of how residents can “Do One Thing” to reduce their energy consumption. Residents learned that if they ”Hit the Switch’, ‘Pull the Plug’ and ‘Shut It’ – meaning windows – they would make a big impact at NC State.

The NC State community has shown it will come together to overcome resource challenges. For instance, since 2002 our campus reduced our water usage 44%. However, we still face a challenge with our energy use. Friendly competitions such as “Do it in the Dark” help to educate our students, faculty and staff of the need for us all to do our part to conserve energy and help reduce our carbon “paw print.”

The Energy Management office is currently comparing 2009 and 2010 data in order to gauge how much money was saved over the course of the competition. An announcement will be made after the holiday break. The partnering offices reviewing the ups and downs of running such a competition and will revise the program accordingly for the spring semester. They hope to engage an even greater portion of campus in the competition during the spring semester.