Senior Seminar:Project Outline
From Copelco
Contents |
What this project is
My primary focus is to increase energy awareness on campus. I think this can be done by providing the information to students in an easily accessible way. I'm interested in direct, easy-to-understand feedback. The problem I see with EEAP is with "indirect feedback – raw data processed by the utility and sent out to customers. Learning by reading and reflecting" (Darby), which is too passive. I believe EEAP needs learning by direct feedback; looking at a display and seeing the dryer running.
Data frequency
I've found the following texts concerning feedback frequency and energy conservation:
The Effectiveness of Feedback on Energy Consumption
- Sarah Darby
- April 2006
- Environmental Chage Institute - University of Oxford
Making it Obvious: Designing Feedback into Energy Consumption
- Sarah Darby
- Environmental Chage Institute - University of Oxford
Motivating residents to conserve energy without financial incentives
- McMakin, Malone, Lundgren
- Environment and Behavior Journal
- February 2002
A comparison of the effects of posted feedback and increased police surveillance on highway speeding
- Ron Van Houten and Paul A. Nau
- Mount Saint Vincent University
Electricity conservation
Electricity conservation is benefited by more frequent feedback, "especially for savings from daily behaviour in non-heating end-uses" (Darby). Having instantaneous feedback means people see the effect of boiling water, leaving appliances in standby mode at night, leaving the lights on, seeing the hot water heater or dryer kick on. It's a learning experience for the students and "feedback is of value in itself as a learning tool and must be seen in context" (Darby).
Why conserving other utilities doesn't fit into the scope of this project
The goal is to improve conservation, but I believe electricity will benefit the most from direct feedback:
Water
- Water is not an issue in the mid-west. There is no shortage here. It's very cheap and conserving water here will not help home owners with a water shortage in the south-west.
Gas
- Natural gas is important to conserve, but isn't as affective for direct feedback. Gas is generally used for heating (for homeowners). The only input the homeowner has is to turn the dail on the thermostat. That's really a constant feedback, the temperature in the room. There's not much you can do other than turn down the heat or insulate your home in a better way.
What it means to be general
Inductive metering is general metering in this context. An inductive meter can attach to anything with a wire; whether it's a house, academic building, or computing cluster. That's a general tool here. Monitoring water and gas will not have an immediate effect on student behavior.
The monitoring system
| Name | Price | Fraction of Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sensor | WattNode | $189 | 2/5 |
| Sensor Connections | 2 * Current Transformers | $88 | 1/5 |
| Data Logger | TS-Board | $189 | 2/5 |
The sensor is 2/5 of the total cost --it is a large percentage. But I'm not a Physics major, this is my Computer Science senior project.
What can be done
- Think about what data should be displayed
- What will be most effective?
- Research best way to visualize the data
- How should it be displayed? In what format?
- Edward Tufte
- and others, more to come
- How should it be displayed? In what format?
- Think about comparisons between dorms and houses
- Monitor two similar dorms (e.g. Warren and Wilson)
- both with monitoring hardware
- one with frequent feedback, e.g. give students data
- compare usage
- Create survey
- How often do you check the website?
- Do you check the website more with frequent feedback?
- Monitor two similar dorms (e.g. Warren and Wilson)
- Install monitoring hardware
- Establish protocol for safe data transfer back to quark
