Existing Programs | Dorm Sustainability

According to Petersen (2007), real-time feedback (rather than weekly/monthly aggregated feedback) along with education initiatives and incentives interest, motivate, and empower college students to reduce resource use in dormitories. Currently, the Kill-A-Watt program only provides weekly feedback, aggregated across entire dormitories.

Our recommendation is that students be provided with room-specific instantaneous feedback through energy monitors or an on-line portal. The feedback can also include comparisons to others students within the dorm building to foster social norms.

Improvements to Existing Programs

Kill-A-Watt Program:

Improved Feedback

Representation of Feedback Spectrum explained in Peterson (2007)

Sample weekly feedback provided by

Kill-A-Watt Competition, 2012

Data is aggregated by dormitory.

http://www.killawattum.org/

Methods and Results of study conducted in Petersen (2007):

Methods:

-Conducted an energy conservation competition at Oberlin College comparing two "high-resolution" dormitories (containing energy monitors) to 16 "low resolution" dormitories (receiving only weekly data).

-Combined feedback and educational materials (i.e., posters, signs) located within the dorms with a competition to induce behavior change.

-Winning dorm--the one that reduced energy consumption the most--received an ice cream party for the entire dormitory. (incentive)

-Created computer kiosks in lobby of the two "high resolution" dormitories that ran continuous presentations of the real-time feedback.

Results:

-32% overall reduction in energy use across all dormitories.

-Highest reductions occurred in the "high resolution" dormitories--average reduction of 55% for "high resolution", compared to 31% reduction for "low resolution"

Discussion:

-Dormitory residents who received instantaneous feedback were more effective at conserving energy than dormitory residents who received only weekly updates on electricity consumption.

-Residents in high resolution dorms exhibited greater interest in feedback, having an average of 4.8 visits/resident to the Dorm Energy website versus 2.5 visits/resident in low resolution dorms.

-High resolution dorm residents continued to view feedback after the competition