We hope you enjoyed the St. Patrick’s day celebrations and are looking forward to the upcoming Easter break.
The Switch-Off for St. Patrick’s day and the weekend period (17th – 20th March) was a great success and we’d like to thank all of the University Community who played their part. The Switch-Off was even more successful than last year, with an additional 14,687kWh being saved.
These additional savings alone equate to the annual electricity consumption of almost 3 homes or are the equivalent of taking a car off the road for 3 months! Considering that last year’s savings were themselves better than 2014 , this shows that the switch-off campaign is growing in effectiveness and that it is having a telling effect on the University’s electricity usage and related CO2 emissions.
The Easter break again presents us with a great opportunity to make savings by switching-off. So before you leave campus this evening please fully switch-off all non-essential equipment such as computers, laptops, screens, printers, research equipment and fume cupboards. Remember; even in sleep or hibernate mode equipment still uses electricity, so please fully shut-down and switch-off where possible.
Thank you, and have a great Easter!
UCD Energy Unit
We Turned Green for St Patricks Day… Efficiently
University College Dublin lights up for St Patricks Day and the 1916 Easter Rising
You may have noticed that a few of UCD’s landmarks, such as the Water Tower and Merville House, turned green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
The challenge was to accomplish the required lighting effect while improving energy efficiency. We installed a number of 110 watt LED light fittings, which deliver approximately 80% efficiency improvements over the previous decorative lights. The old lights had been installed for the 150th UCD anniversary some 12 years ago.