Winner will be Determined by Biggest Percentage Decrease in Consumption 
 
HARTFORD, Conn. – With new electric meters having been installed on the residence halls, a competition will be held during the week of November 9 to determine which group of students can decrease their energy consumption by the largest percentage.

The race to reduce the use of electricity will begin Monday at noon and continue through Saturday at noon. At that time, the winning residence hall will be announced.

The six-day competition is sponsored by ConnPIRG, the SGA, and Green Campus, and is designed to make students aware of how much electricity they consume and to encourage them to turn off their lights, computers and other appliances when not in use.

The event’s objective, said Nichola Clark ’12, “is to raise student awareness of their energy consumption so they can reduce that consumption and help Trinity become a greener campus.”

To help serve as a reminder to students, Chartwells food service will begin serving green food on Monday and continue serving green food (both natural and colored) throughout the week.

The baseline readings will be taken from the electric meters before the competition starts. The reason that the winner will be determined by the percentage decrease and not by the absolute reduction in usage is because Trinity’s 27 residence halls are of difference size, construction and house different numbers of students. Typically, the higher the population of a residence hall, the more electricity is used.

The students who live in the winning residence hall will each receive a free T-shirt and possibly be treated to a party at The Treehouse, the new environmental theme house on Allen Place.

If the competition proves successful, it may be repeated throughout the academic year.

“Globally speaking, our natural resources are being rapidly depleted and we have the power to help preserve our world for future generations,” said Clark, a member of ConnPIRG’s Global Warming Solutions. “Action is required by all entities…and Trinity needs to do its part in the preservation movement.”

Students who live in the residence halls will be able to monitor their energy consumption throughout the week, although it’s a little complicated and the procedure is only available to students who have PCs, not Macs.

The Web site address is: http://157.252.15.79/RCC. If logging in for the first time, a student must install RC-WebView Client Plugin by clicking on the icon to the left of the above statement. Once a student’s Client Plugin is installed, he or she may log on by simply using his or her user ID and password.

A second way for a student to monitor usage is to go to: http://dormwars.trincoll.edu/RCC and install the plug-in switch.

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