When deciding whether to participate in programs designed to conserve energy during peak hours, consumers appear to rely more on their intuition about how much money they’re saving rather than on proof that their bills are lower, a new study by a CFAES scientist has found.
energy conservation
Renewable Energy Workshop at green fair
CFAES’s Wooster campus is holding its eighth Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair on April 26, and part of the program includes a free, expert-led Renewable Energy Workshop.
May 16 at Ohio State: 2 ways to turn your home greener
May’s monthly breakfast program by the Environmental Professionals Network will feature Erik Daugherty, founder of the Nashville, Tennessee-based home-performance company E3 Innovate. He’ll present “Technologies and Strategies for Home Energy Efficiencies: Satisfied Homeowners, Sustainable Planet” from 7:15 to 9:15 a.m. this coming Tuesday, May 16.
Right after, Ohio State will hold its second-ever Green Home Workshop in the same location.
Register for both events by Monday, May 15 (scroll down).
EPN is a service of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.
How to cut your home energy bill
CFAES and its partners are holding their second Green Home Workshop on May 16 in Columbus. The deadline to sign up is Monday, May 15.
Included will be tours of Ohio State’s student-designed and -built enCORE solar home, shown here, which is just a short walk from the workshop site. (Photo: Office of Energy and Environment, Ohio State.)
Climate change consequences, solutions
Ris Twigg reported on Jan. 11’s Environmental Professionals Network breakfast program, which looked at climate change, energy conservation and renewable energy, in Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern.
The network is a public service of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.
Jan. 11 EPN event will feature climatologist Lonnie Thompson
J
an. 11’s Environmental Professionals Network breakfast program has a big title for a big topic — in fact, for four very closely related topics.
It’s called “Global Warming. You and Me. Energy Audits. Money in Your Pocket. Cleaner Air. More Comfortable Home. Help Is Available. Don’t Procrastinate.”
And it features talks by four Ohio experts — led by Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in Ohio State’s School of Earth Sciences and senior research scientist with the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (pictured) — on a theme of climate and energy. Read more …
‘We’re downright obsessive’ about energy efficiency. Hear how you can be, too
Green is good. Renewable rocks. But don’t forget energy efficiency, says the organizer of an upcoming event at Ohio State. Continue reading
Greener, more energy-efficient homes and places of worship
People’s homes and places of worship can be greener. They can save energy, save money and cut their climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions. A speaker at CFAES’s Farm Science Review, which is Sept. 22-24 in London, Ohio, will show how …
Buckeye Footprint: A venue for conservation
Have you heard of Buckeye Footprint? Probably not, and unfortunately, you’re not alone. Buckeye Footprint (http://footprint.osu.edu/), a website with cool graphs and data about Ohio State’s energy use and real-time energy feeds from metered buildings, has largely not met its potential as a means to reduce energy consumption and develop environmental awareness on campus. In addition to flying under the school’s radar, Buckeye Footprint alone does not provide incentives for campus community members to conserve energy, and let’s face it, most of us would rather spend our free time looking at sports scores and Facebook than huge numbers that we can’t comprehend.
Our class group worked with the Office of Sustainability and Energy Services to address these issues so that Buckeye Footprint can be an engine for campus sustainability. Our plan was three-fold: marketing through social media, personalization through energy competitions and increased metering, and improved accessibility of information.
We propose that the office develop a fun, catchy Youtube video advertising the site — one that will both pique curiosity about Buckeye Footprint and also make people want to send the video to their friends. Also, the website needs to go where students, staff, and faculty go, so instead of expecting people to constantly visit the site, it should instead be in widget form on the OSU homepage and in application form on Facebook. In addition, the glue that holds our recommendations together is the incentives: We suggest there be multi-week dorm and academic building energy conservation competitions, and daily results should be posted on Buckeye Footprint. Finally, the website itself could use some tweaks — more environmentally-related photographs, more visually appealing and relatable data, and tweets from site users. By implementing these changes, we believe Buckeye Footprint can be an effective tool for improving campus sustainability.
A screen shot from footprint.osu.edu
Sustainable housing, energy savings: What can we learn from this place?
Ohio State’s Mark Walter speaks this Thursday (Feb. 23) on the university’s enCORE solar home (video 3:29), which placed fifth out of 20 international teams in last year’s U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. (Photo: Jim Tetro/DOE/Solar Decathlon.)