Last Thursday, the University turned off a few lights for an hour and saved $110,000. Our initial thought: Can we do that? And actually, we can.
Organized by Penn’s Office of the Executive Vice President, the hour-long break from electricity conserved about 12-13 Megawatts. In layman’s terms, Penn turned off the equivalent of somewhere between 120,000 and 520,000 average lightbulbs.
But more impressive than how much energy (or money) was saved is how easy it was. Last Thursday was exceedingly hot and humid in
Philadelphia, a day when it would be easiest to just stay inside in an air-conditioned office in the middle of the afternoon — the time Penn chose to power down. Now imagine the temperature is nice. You can turn off the air conditioner, fan or heater (depending on the season) and open a window for an hour or two. It is the middle of the day and bright enough tp use natural light. You can unplug your computer cord because your laptop is fully charged. And at the end of the month, your utility bill would be lower, and you will have helped the environment.
Not only do we encourage students to engage in this energy-saving behavior as much as possible — to turn off lights and unplug appliances when you leave a room — but we also encourage Penn to repeat this planned power-down hour. But next time, we hope the event is better publicized and students are more active participants. Maybe the event should even become a regular occurrence.
This can be an easy lifestyle change, so why not give it a try? You might even save a few bucks — or the planet.
