Beloit University course developing environmental dashboard for students to monitor energy use

Beloit University plans to introduce an environmental dashboard this spring, developed in Steve Huss-Lederman’s capstone course, that will allow students to understand their energy consumption and monitor it from week to week.
 
“The purpose behind it is to give students a sense of their impact,” Sustainability Coordinator Lindsay Chapman, who is leading an energy team of five students, said. “The complaints I get are twofold, with facilities saying students don’t know their impact, leaving windows open in the winter, while students want to know their impact. [They want to know] how much energy does it take to run a dorm room?”
 
The dashboards will allow Beloit student to access information from energy submeters that were installed in Chapin, Maurer and Alrich residence halls this summer. Using these tools, students will be able to see how much energy is used for each building and even for each floor of each building.
 
The dashboard is not a Beloit exclusive. It is being developed in consultation with other schools on best practices and, upon completion, will be made available to other institutions.

To date, at least 10 other schools have contacted Huss-Lederman about using the dashboard to monitor their campuses energy impact.