| dc.description.abstract | Though less than 2% of schools are colleges and universities in Taiwan, electricity consumption of these higher education establishments exceed 60% of the total. While saving energy is a focus of higher education, if these establishments can further analyze the energy consumption behavior of students and thereby establish effective energy-saving policies, they can develop good energy-saving habits in students. Electricity load and hardware consumption, e.g. device capacity, were the foci of past studies on campus electricity consumption, factors such as course activities, climate, and electricity consumption habits were seldom studied. This study thus investigated the proportion of power consumption of air-conditioning, the efficacy of turning off unused appliances, and the proportion of idling computers based on electricity, course and climatic data.
Data falling into the summer school days, summer holidays, winter school days, winter holidays, and Spring Festival sessions were selected from the continuous power consumption data retrieved from the digital electricity monitoring system implemented by National Central University (NCU). Data retrieved every minute from the meter for each session were arranged for statistical analysis.
Based on the same course arrangement, the electricity consumption difference between winter and summer represents the air-conditioning electricity consumption. Results indicate that the air-conditioning electricity consumption at NCU on school days and holidays is over 27% and over 19% respectively. The efficacy of turning off unused appliances is obtained by subtracting the midnight electricity consumption during Spring Festival by that of the same time period in winter holiday sessions. Results indicate that at least 490,000kWh of electricity can be saved a year. When calculated at N$2.1 per kWh, a sum of NT$1 million is saved a year.
This study also investigated the proportion of idling computers in 4 student halls by deducting the minimum hourly electricity consumption during the Spring Festival from that of the same time period on school days. Results indicate that a sum of 108,581kWh amounted to about NT$228,020 wasted on idling computers for 7 hours a day, 270 days a year. This suggests that there is a large space for NCU to save energy by enforcing more aggressive computer management.
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