Luther and Wartburg Compete in Energy Challenge

This February, Luther College and Wartburg entered a new era of their rivalry: Energy Challenge 2009. This Challenge consisted of a head-to-head competition between the schools to reduce the most overall electricity and heating usage. The winning school got a hand-carved trophy and a year of bragging rights.

So who won? The schools ended the month with a split decision. Wartburg students implemented changes that resulted in an electric bill reduction of 3.62 percent. Luther’s February 2009 electric bill was 1.8 percent higher than its 2008 bill. In the heating competition, Luther students were victorious, reducing the institution’s gas consumption by 11 percent. Wartburg saw a slight increase of one percent in its gas usage, after adjusting for heating degree days.

The month was successful for both schools. Regardless of the outcome of the competition, both schools felt that the awareness level of energy conservation went up.

“This year was a pilot for this competition, and both schools learned a lot about how complex it is to track energy use and our carbon footprints,” said Wartburg sustainability officer, Tammy Faux. “The Energy Challenge was a positive month-long event because it really got people talking about energy use on both campuses. People were looking for changes they could make in their own energy consumption.”

To keep the excitement through the month, Luther held various events and had theme weeks focusing on different ways to conserve energy, each with Wartburg in the title: 'Turn off Wartburg' (turn off the lights), 'Water Down Wartburg' (conserve water), 'Pull the Plug on Wartburg' (get rid of phantom loads).

Luther had its own energy competition, too. Each floor of each residence hall was competing to reduce the most energy and perform well on unannounced room energy evaluations. For the dedication to conservation of the winning floors: a pizza and prize party. Prizes included local gift certificates, a Netflix® subscription, and solar-powered iPods (iPods with solar chargers).

The winning dorms were determined based on electricity meters and the top five floors were based off of energy audits done by 40 volunteers. Volunteers knocked on every door in every dorm, bringing with them a checklist of positive and negative energy habits. Dorm rooms got points for having CFL bulbs, etc, and lost points for having more than one refrigerator, leaving their chargers plugged in when not being used, etc. Five of the seven residence halls reduced their electricity usage throughout the month by over 12 percent!

By Megan Selvig, senior student researcher, and Caleb Mattison, sustainability coordinator

For more information, contact Caleb Mattison, mattca01@luther.edu