Harvard Pushes Energy Reduction

Several stories below the Science Center, the College is humming—literally.

Pipes of all colors and sizes branch out in every direction, passing over gargantuan machines that resemble the engines of a cruise liner. In another large room, five monolithiºc boxes distribute roughly a third of the electricity Harvard uses, every hour every day.

The loud hum, explains Director of Energy and Utilities Doug Garron, is the sound of Harvard in full swing—thousands of people using computers, taking showers and turning on lights—sometimes wastefully.

Altogether, it is a chorus of steam, heat, electricity and chilled water that will cost the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) more than $15.7 million this year alone—an increase of 25 percent since 1995.

New construction, expanding use of technology and an influx of affiliates over the past decade, Garron have all contributed to a “dramatic pattern” of growth in energy use at Harvard—including an annual increase of about 7 percent in the University’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Now far above the underground substation, a new wave of conservation efforts has begun, sparked by the concerns of budget-conscious administrators and environmentally aware students from groups like the Environmental Action Committee (EAC) and the Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI).

Taking Action

In an office at the corner of the University on Oxford Street, HGCI Director Leith Sharp and a small staff oversee one of the College’s most ambitious projects—to get students to turn off their computer monitors when not using them.

Known as the Computer Energy Reduction Program (CERP), it is one of a handful of projects founded over the summer with funding from FAS in order to promote campus awareness of energy use through advertising and prizes.

“We have a situation where people live in a state of ignorance about their impact,” she explains. “At the moment, students bring a set of behaviors with them, and until recently, we’ve had no mechanisms to address that behavior.”

During the summer a group of HGCI interns estimated that FAS could save $360,000 per year if students put computers on sleep mode or switched them off when not in use. Currently, up to 60 percent students needlessly leave their computers on day and night, the group estimates.

Students admit they often needlessly waste energy.

“My roommate leaves [lights] on all the time,” Timothy A. “Teo” Wickland ’04 says. “I mention it, but he doesn’t seem to believe that turning off the lights has any impact on the environment.”

To John Hsu ’03 and Kate Widland ’02, co-chairs of the EAC, such attitudes are pervasive and difficult to change. With the help of Sharp, the group has reinvigorated the Green Cup, a monthly contest that awards the most energy-efficient undergraduate House with an ice cream party.

“We’re trying to get students to have a certain level of awareness,” Hsu says. “Maybe they’ll walk around their House asking, ‘why is that light always on?’ or, ‘why is the heat always so high and why doesn’t anyone complain?’”

But to complain, Hsu says, students need a better understanding of how Harvard works, and who is in charge.

The Inner Workings

Harvard’s energy management structure and ultitity use is complex, even to Associate Vice President for Facilities and Environmental Services Thomas E. Vautin, who oversees it.

“Harvard is a very decentralized place, even within the individual schools,” he explains.

Between its buildings, FAS—including libraries and atheletic facilities—accounts for more than half of the University’s total electricity, steam and chilled water consumption, according to Vautin.

Each school buys its energy from Engineering and Utilities, an office at Harvard that manages and distributes energy purchased from local utility companies.

By buying electricity instead of generating it itself, Harvard not only saves money through economies of scale, but also creates an incentive for each school to reduce its energy use.

Nevertheless, energy use at the University has increased by more than 17 percent since 1995, due mostly to an influx of computers and inefficient users, Vautin says.

Added to that increase is an estimated 52 percent jump in CO2 emissions since 1991, caused by the University’s use of more fossil fuel energy.

“Most people don’t think about what happens when they throw a light switch on,” Vautin says. “At the end of a long series of wires there’s a power plant consuming fossil fuel. They don’t recognize they’re having a small impact on air emissions. On the scale of Harvard all that impact really does add up.”

Working Together?

Last May, after meeting with concerned students, Dean of FAS Jeremy R. Knowles agreed to form an ad hoc energy task force to be led by longtime campus environmentalist Lawrence Professor of Engineering Fred H. Abernathy.

EAC Co-Chairs Hsu and Widland said that Knowles’ move was the first evidence in a long time that students and Faculty could work together to reduce energy use—a feeling reinforced by last month’s Undergradute Council resolution to form an official student-faculty energy committee.

“There is currently no established avenue within Harvard to address environmental issues, making institutional change in this area especially difficult,” the resolution read.

While the EAC receives funding for their activism efforts from Harvard’s Office of Physical Resources (OPR), Hsu, who sponsored the new council task force on conservation, says he hopes for more productive collaborations to bring change to the College.

Hsu says that energy changes depend not only on a grassroots bottom-up approach, but also on well-coordinated efforts by Faculty and staff—efforts that need to be prompted by communication from students.

“In order for the College to be receptive, the students have to make noise,” he adds. “So it takes effort on both parts. Neither party can do it all by themselves.”

From the Top Down

Energy efficiency demands much more than students remembering to turn off their lights and computers, says Director of the College’s Office of Physical Resources (OPR) Michael N. Lichten.

With the help of Director of Building Maintenance and Operations Jay M. Phillips, Lichten focuses on improving energy efficiency in FAS’s mechanical systems, including the motors of ventilation systems and fume hoods—the fresh air exchange systems in laboratories—which Phillips says, “are the highest energy consumers” at Harvard.

As OPR continues to focus on updating the campus’ buildings with more efficient digital energy systems, Phillips says they also look forward to tackling the problem of inefficient fume hood use, which is estimated to cost the College $100,000 each year.

He stressed that while the environmental effects of Harvard’s energy use cannot be ignored, financial cost is of primary concern in making energy efficient changes.

“We do every project on a payback analysis, determining how much we spend versus how much we will save,” Phillips says. “We don’t throw money at things. We do a project when it makes sense.”

One such effort, started in 1999, replaced popular but inefficient halogen floor lamps in undergraduate roomswith a more economical florescent model, developed by engineering student Linsey C. Marr ’96 for her senior thesis.

OPR estimates that the lamps, which now exist in every dorm room, have saved the College close to $300,000 and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2,000 tons.

A Global Partner

Over at Leith Sharp’s Green Campus Initative, other environmental projects are in the works, including an interest-free loan fund for environmentally friendly campus renovations, and an exchange to educate campus decision-makers on how best to conserve energy.

Sharp laments the lack of energy awareness at most administrative levels at the University. To meet the basic standards of the Kyoto Protocol—a 1997 international treaty to reduce global warming—she says that the University would need to reduce its already growing CO2 emissions by 35 percent during the next five years.

“It would be ideal if [Harvard] followed some of the leadership we see in the corporate sector, where environmental reporting and energy efficiency targets are standard,” she says.

But, Sharp notes, the first step may be to incorporate some form of environmental education at all levels throughout the University.

“People here—students, faculty and administrators—are often too busy to realize the impact of their daily decisions. Harvard needs to invest in its own ability to learn,” she says. “If a university can’t meet its profound responsibility as a member of a global community, then who will?”