The development of the dashboard is now underway. The company developing it for us will have the spec drafted for our approval on Wednesday next week (29th June). In addition to the original plan of a dashboard, we are also developing a desktop gadget. This will use the IP address of the PC the user is on to create a rev counter style display that will show the energy consumption of that building in comparison to that week the previous year. The gadget will change colour depending on the performance i.e. if the energy consumption is greater than 10% less than that week the previous year the colour will be green, if it is between +-10% amber and above 10% greater than the previous year red. The users will have the option to change the building the gadget is showing data for.
The gadget will also link through to the dashboard. The dashboard template is displayed below.
The dashboard will show the overall performance of the campus rotating through £/CO2/kWh/m2. Users will be able to click on this to drill down into the performance table and further down to compare buildings and time periods.
The next section will be a series of rolling posters advertising key messages and events. Clicking on these posters will take the user to more information.
The next section will be the UCLan Green Team twitter feed. This will be set up so users and UCLans’ tweets will be displayed. There are some concerns about how we manage this in case inappropriate tweets are displayed. We could set up a feed that allows the UCLan Green Team to approve the tweets from other users before they are published.
The next section will be a method through which the users can email the Green Team to report any issues or good practice.
Finally the campus map will show the RAG for each building on campus, displayed on a campus map. Clicking on the image will open a larger map and from here users will be able to drill down into the Sigma Six system to compare buildings and timelines.
In addition we have completed the iBuilding surveys to develop the baseline for comparison later in the project. The results were very positive.
Staff survey
The staff survey was completed by 139 staff members with a broad cross section of schools and departments represented.
The key head lines were that 83.5 % of staff felt they had a responsibility to manage / reduce energy consumption on campus, 10.8% were unsure and only 5.8% of staff said no.
The staff were provided a series of statements and were asked to state to which they agreed, as shown the graph below.
When asked if they encourage others to reduce / manage their energy consumption while on campus, 40.3% said yes, 31.7% said sometimes and 28.1% said no.
When asked if UCLan did enough to manage its energy consumption only 11.5 % said yes, 51.1% said no and 37.4% said not sure. A lot of the justification focused on unnecessary lighting or lights left on when rooms / buildings were not in use. Many staff were advocates of the motion sensor lighting.
The main suggestions given for how UCLan could improve the work it does around energy consumption were;
• Resolve heating issues
• Stop leaving items on charge
• Review lighting
• Make reducing energy consumption interesting
• Two way communication / culture change
• Better recycling facilities
Generally the staff seemed interested in the dashboard – although it should the noted that the option of not having a dashboard was not included. The most popular requirement for the dashboard was to be able to highlight good or bad practice. Next was energy and water consumption of individual buildings, followed by ways to reduce energy consumption, cost of energy consumption and what UCLan is doing to reduce energy consumption.
Student survey
The survey was completed by 56 students from Schools across the university.
The students were asked to what extent they agreed with a set of statements and their answers are shown in the graph below.
When asked to what extent they agreed with the statement “I have a responsibility for energy consumption on campus” 17% strongly agreed, 39.6% agreed, 5.7% were unsure, 1.9% disagreed and 9.4% of students strongly disagreed.
When asked if energy consumption on campus affected them directly 58.6 % felt they were directly affected and listed;
– Money spent on energy could be spent on resources
– Environment
– Cost of items such as food on campus increasing to cover the bill
– Rent in Halls
– Fees
– Reputation of UCLan
– Potential restrictions in energy
When asked if UCLan did enough to reduce its energy consumption 13.2% said yes, 18.9% said no and 69.8% were unsure. Answers given included;
– Solar panels, sensor lights, recycling and electric vehicles were examples of good practice
– Some felt UCLan was doing something but it wasn’t enough
– Raising awareness and education were recommended
– Lots commented on auto switch off / sleep modes and sensors being needed
– Reducing printing – staff and students
– Academics having responsibility for switching off lights
– Plasmas not posters
When asked how UCLan could improve energy consumption they uggested;
• Encourage people to switch off lights / computers / PCs and have more motion sensors
• Reduce number of PCs / Printers at quiet times
• More solar power
• Caps on electricity included in rent
• eSubmission of forms / assessments so students do not have to drive in
• Let students design green energy systems / power off devices
• Online lecture notes
Finally the students were asked what functionality they would be interested in seeing on the energy dashboard. Again a not interested in the dashboard option was not included. The top answers were; cost of energy and water consumption, how UCLan is reducing energy consumption, comparison between buildings, energy and water use in individual buildings and highlighting good and bad practice.
