Saving Energy During Unplugged 2019

Each year, the many devices connected to the energy grid consume a lot of energy, even though they’re turned off! GO Green Office and Team Energy put their hands together to avert this waste of energy on the TU/e-campus for the fourth year in a row. This year however, we want to do more, and for that we need your help!

This December, before you lock the door behind you and head for the Christmas cosiness that awaits, take a few minutes to remove the plugs from the sockets in your room. Charger’s, TV’s and even the speakers you got from Sinterklaas all contribute to this needless waste of electricity. If we all do our part, we can save a lot of energy for a green and Merry Christmas! Just to get an idea of what we can achieve by unplugging devices, we’ve done a little calculation for the TU/e-campus.

Over the past three years, the energy load during the Christmas days was measured in order to see how much energy is consumed on an ‘empty’ university. By extrapolating this value over the remaining 363 days, we can see how much of the total annual energy use originates from the baseload. In 2018, this baseload was found to be responsible for 80 percent of the total consumption! If we can cut this baseload by about 5 percent, we can save over 1.9 GWh (1,900,000 kWh) of energy (Meulen, 2019)! More details can be found in the table below.

We know December is a busy month, so from December 10 to 18, two TU/e Unplugged Christmas trees will travel around campus to help you remember. On these dates, you can write down your sustainable Christmas wish or New Year’s resolution for the TU/e campus and hang it in the tree! We will use your wishes as inspiration for our projects next year! Consult the schedule on the left to see when the Christmas tree will be in your building. We, Team Energy and Go Green Office, will gladly consider all off your wishes next year!

Let’s make this Christmas a green one!

References: 

Meulen, T. (2019). Energie management review 2018. Retrieved from https://assets.tue.nl/fileadmin/content/universiteit/Over_de_universiteit/Duurzaamheid/Management%20Review%202018%20def%282%29.pdf

 TU/e-campus calculation: