Dunn analyzed power use for Thursday, the first day word was sent out to the campus to conserve electricity. We saved about 300 kilowatts of load off the state grid, which is about 5 percent of our campus use. As conservation efforts expand, two areas to think about are lighting and computers, said Dunn. Torchiere-style floor lights are particularly inefficient, Dunn said. What many people don't realize is that most fluorescent lights in UCSC offices can be adjusted to be less bright.
Computer use is another factor.
Most computers on campus could meet the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star conservation guidelines, but companies usually ship computers with these features disabled, said Dunn. They come that way out of the box. While there have been efforts to get computer manufacturers to sell computers with those features activated, that job will be up to network administrators for now. Refrigerators are one more area of concern. We need to go back to where we were in the '70s.