Energy Dashboards

What gets measured gets managed. Empowering Yale undergraduates living in the residential colleges to make informed energy use decisions is necessary for the University to reduce its overal energy consumption.

In January 2010, touch screen monitors that provide students with real-time information about energy consumption were installed in Yale’s Pierson and Silliman residential colleges. Accompanied by an educational campaign about residential energy consumption at Yale, the monitors aim to provide students with direct and immediate awareness of the effects of their consumption decisions.

Designed by Lucid Design Group, the system displays real-time data on energy used for electricity, heating, and cooling. Large, interactive touch-screen monitors installed near the Pierson and Silliman dining halls allow viewers to see their energy consumption patterns over time, compare between colleges, and display in unit equivalencies such as gallons of gasoline, monetary cost, and hours of use for microwaves or laptops. You can also interact with the real-time data online through a live website at http://buildingdashboard.net/Yale

The real-time energy monitoring project is part of Yale's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Commitment signed by University President Richard Levin in 2005. Yale committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020—a 43 percent reduction from 2005 levels.   The real-time energy dashboard project will help to achieve this long term goal.  We also hope to capture student enthusiasm for reducing energy consumption by offering tangible steps for students across campus to implement in their college residences.