Office workers don’t get a utility bill for the energy they use at work, points out Ray Yun, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Architecture. For his dissertation, he decided to create an effective way for desk jockeys to save energy. The result is the Intelligent Dashboard, a web-based application that shows users' real-time energy usage and allows to them to manage their consumption using manual and automated controls.
“What I am most proud of is helping people to see energy saving opportunities,” says Yun. “Office workers have no big incentive to put any effort into conserving energy at work since they don’t pay the bills. Without providing rewards or penalties or forcing workers to use our dashboard, we have successfully assisted them in voluntarily acting on behalf of the environment.”
The dashboard evaluates “plug load energy use” — plug load refers to how many things are actually plugged into outlets at an individual desk. They all pull from the grid.
Eighty employees at a major Pittsburgh corporation field-tested the dashboard, using plug-in devices manufactured by Plugwise that measure the energy consumption of each device and provide digital on-off control.
After six weeks, the group with a full suite of energy monitors, online controls and the ability to place their work schedule on a calendar to control unnecessary plug loads, averaged 35.4 percent savings in their plug load energy consumption.
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Consortium for Building Energy Innovation and Yun believes it has commercial potential. The research team, which also includes Azizan Aziz, Vivian Loftness, Bertrand Lasternas, Peter Scupelli, Chenlu Zhang, Yunjeong Mo and Jie Zhao, is looking to expand the technology to other sectors in building energy management such as lighting, HVAC and building temperature.
Source: Ray Yun, Carnegie Mellon University
Writer: Elise Vider