Energy savings: Kilowhat’s the point?
AU will continue to focus on saving energy over the autumn and winter, and many kilowatt hours are at stake. Saving energy helps the university contribute to a more sustainable future and continues to make a big difference to its finances.
By working together, staff and students at AU can help keep the university’s energy consumption down. This is the message in an updated version of last year’s energy-saving campaign, which is now being launched across the university. Because joint action makes a difference. We saw this last year, when AU achieved significant energy savings over the autumn and winter months.
Now it’s a matter of keeping up the good work whenever we can, says University Director Kristian Thorn.
“Last year’s result testifies to how much we can achieve when we work together as an organisation towards a common goal. Now many of us are starting to think about energy consumption in our daily operations at the university. And this is the right way forward. Working to reduce emissions for the sake of the climate is more important than ever before, and we – particularly as a university – have a responsibility to contribute to a more sustainable future,” says Kristian Thorn.
Last autumn and winter, the university cut its electricity use by 16% and its heating consumption by 17% – which corresponds to 10,000,000 kWh. Energy-saving initiatives in laboratories have made a particularly big difference. Take fume hoods as a good example. AU has several fume hoods in its laboratories to extract toxic fumes from the working environment – but, on average, a fume hood uses as much electricity in 24 hours as a household uses in a year. By turning off fume hoods when they’re not being used, we can save several kilowatt hours.
The university will also continue to focus on its heating consumption. Because, although AU is turning up the thermostats slightly this year out of consideration for the work environment, it will continue to focus on optimising its energy use within the temperature range recommended by the Danish Working Environment Authority.
You can read more about energy-saving initiatives at AU and the difference they can make on au.dk/kilowhat. On this webpage you can also get inspiration on how you and your colleagues can contribute to keeping AU’s energy consumption down in your daily lives on campus