 "Photo: Photo Illustration by Danielle Gallagher")
Members of RU Sustainable were thinking of ways to change the University's energy consumption when a light bulb went off in their minds - a compact fluorescent light bulb, to be exact.
Through donations, RU Sustainable purchased 500 energy-efficient light bulbs to replace the desk and tree lamps for the 325 students who live in Campbell Hall on the College Avenue campus.
They will offer first-year students in Campbell the opportunity to exchange at no cost their standard light bulbs for the new technology starting tonight at 10 p.m.
The pilot program - created in conjunction with the offices of housing services and facilities and maintenance - is focused on reducing the high-energy demand from the residence halls. Power in the residence halls accounts for 22 percent of the entire housing fee, according to the housing office.
The CFL light bulbs use a quarter of the electricity of a regular incandescent light bulb. They are 27-watt bulbs but are as bright as the regular incandescent bulbs. The CFLs last an average of seven years.
The longer lives and reduced energy expenditures will likely translate into the University and students saving money during the short-term two-month project and in the future.
"This is an elegantly simple project because we wanted to find something we could measure and show that it would work," said Jeff Perlman, a member of RU Sustainable.
Campbell Hall was chosen as the site of the pilot project because it is metered separately from the other buildings and provides housing for mostly first-year students.
Facilities and maintenance will help to meter the buildings so that the power savings can be documented. It will use the findings to make further recommendations to save money and energy at the University.
The funding for the CFL light bulbs came in part from the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability, a statewide nonprofit organization.
If 325 students exchanged light bulbs and then used them for four hours a day in place of their incandescent bulb it would save Campbell Hall $2,000 annually, Perlman said.
"That is just one building and there are dozens of dormitories," Perlman said.
"What we want to get across to students is here is one simple fix. It is the beginning of a conversation on how we can do things in a more sustainable way," Perlman said. "We are maximizing a triple bottom line: improving the environment, saving students money and improving the quality of life."
Joe Witkowski, director of Utilities Operations, agreed that consumer involvement in these types of projects can affect the cost for students.
"If we are able to reduce our energy loads, things of that nature will have a significant impact," Witkowski said.
Witkowski described the project as a technology fix - the same number of lights and the same brightness but using fewer watts. The ability to measure the amount of energy saved will be a way to show people they can have an impact, Witkowski said.
"[RU Sustainable] is trying to make people more conscious," he said.
Another goal is to plant a seed of environmental awareness with the first-year students, said Sarah Bolger, RU Sustainable member and Douglass College senior.
"Students don't have to change their whole lives, they have to change behaviors," Bolger said. "Changing light bulbs isn't going to save the environment. Changing to solar powers isn't going to save the environment. But using renewable resources and using less energy will have an impact."
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