Emerging Technologies Adoption Through Student Involvement: the Green Campus Program
Green Campus is an Alliance to Save Energy led program which uses student involvement to introduce and accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies. The program goals include building pathways to green careers, realizing measurable energy savings on campuses, introducing energy efficiency in the curriculum, and promoting efficiency outreach through educational campaigns.
Currently employing over 75 college-level interns yearly, Green Campus encompasses two main areas examined in the CBC reports: workforce development and the implementation of existing and emerging technologies. The program engages students early on in the learning curve with the latest and most exciting technologies thus placing the students at the forefront of energy efficiency while they’re learning.
CAL STATE FULLERTON:
Green Campus integrated energy efficiency into academics by developing a course guide and for-credit internship program as well as conducting an LED lighting retrofit. Developed in partnership with a committee of faculty advisors, the course guide for the first time created a rating system for “green” courses on campus. A cost-benefit analysis of the lamps used in the LED retrofit demonstrated that the retrofit would pay for itself in energy savings in less than one year. The LED lights cost approximately $1,900, but led to 19,000 kWh of energy savings, or over $27,000 in total savings over the project’s lifetime, making this a worthwhile upfront investment on any campus.
UC SANTA CRUZ DINING AND FOOD SERVICE EFFICIENCY TURBO POT PILOT:
Green Campus interns connected with dining management to test the highly efficient Eneron Turbo Pots within a kitchen in Crown-Merrill College. The kitchen staff was asked to complete a simple log with respect to their use of the Turbo Pots over three weeks, and Green Campus interns will later collect and analyze the log data and present the results back to dining management. While results from the pilot are still pending, preliminary testing from the Food Service Technology Center (FSTC) shows that with the Turbo Pot cooking energy efficiency was increased by 50.7-63.0% over the standard pot. View complete FSTC report.
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