Real-time metering data for every NUS building
BREAKING NEWS by Kathleen Tan
3 November 2011
NUS students will soon be able to access data on how much electricity and water they use in school. Halls and other campus residences can also see how much energy they use relative to one another. With such visual comparison, there is a new element of friendly competition among halls to save the most energy.
The Office of Environmental Sustainability in NUS will launch a new online portal said to be the first of its kind in Singapore’s institutions. By next February, the school’s metering infrastructure data will be imported into a real-time monitoring and display system, Marcus Tay, a sustainability executive, said.
Staff and students will be able to “have information on utilities consumption of every building at their fingertips,” said Tay. The new infrastructure aims to reduce energy consumption on campus.
The online portal will display in real-time the breakdown of electricity and water consumed by every building in NUS. This system covers all 92 buildings from the various campuses of NUS. Data will be updated every 15 to 20 minutes.
“You won’t get to know how much energy consumption you saved during Earth Hour until you get your bills at the end of that month,” said Tay, in reference to the campaign in March that urged citizens worldwide to switch off the lights for an hour.
Currently, it is difficult to gauge accurately the consumption saved on a particular day, but the portal will give real-time data for immediate knowledge. “We can also easily identify which building consumes the most energy,” Tay added. “Past data will also be visible.”
The consumption data will be shown for individual faculties according to the month of the year. Information on each month will be compared to that of the same month in the previous year to measure the reduction in consumption. This applies to halls of residence as well.
The Office raised concerns about whether students will have to pay for viewership of this data. At the feedback session on Oct. 10, the team also sought student opinions on how specific the information display should be – down to kilowatt per hour per person or simply per building. This portal is modeled after similar portals used in overseas colleges like American University, Penn State University and Arizona State University.
Tan Shuming, a Year 3 Geography major, believes students will work to reduce consumption. “Students staying in Prince George’s Park residences pay a fixed fee regardless of the amount of electricity and water consumed. It is difficult to know whether a particular block or cluster is using too much,” she explained. “With the new portal, they monitor their block’s usage closely and try to ensure they will not end up being the block with largest consumption.”
However, Seah Hui Shian, a Year 3 Communications and New Media major, is skeptical about the effectiveness. “It still requires personal effort and time to access the data, so it may not be so easy to get those who are not conscious of saving energy to start doing so,” she said. “In short, students’ habits may not change since they are not paying for the electricity and water bills for NUS.”
3 November 2011
NUS students will soon be able to access data on how much electricity and water they use in school. Halls and other campus residences can also see how much energy they use relative to one another. With such visual comparison, there is a new element of friendly competition among halls to save the most energy.
The Office of Environmental Sustainability in NUS will launch a new online portal said to be the first of its kind in Singapore’s institutions. By next February, the school’s metering infrastructure data will be imported into a real-time monitoring and display system, Marcus Tay, a sustainability executive, said.
Staff and students will be able to “have information on utilities consumption of every building at their fingertips,” said Tay. The new infrastructure aims to reduce energy consumption on campus.
The online portal will display in real-time the breakdown of electricity and water consumed by every building in NUS. This system covers all 92 buildings from the various campuses of NUS. Data will be updated every 15 to 20 minutes.
“You won’t get to know how much energy consumption you saved during Earth Hour until you get your bills at the end of that month,” said Tay, in reference to the campaign in March that urged citizens worldwide to switch off the lights for an hour.
Currently, it is difficult to gauge accurately the consumption saved on a particular day, but the portal will give real-time data for immediate knowledge. “We can also easily identify which building consumes the most energy,” Tay added. “Past data will also be visible.”
The consumption data will be shown for individual faculties according to the month of the year. Information on each month will be compared to that of the same month in the previous year to measure the reduction in consumption. This applies to halls of residence as well.
The Office raised concerns about whether students will have to pay for viewership of this data. At the feedback session on Oct. 10, the team also sought student opinions on how specific the information display should be – down to kilowatt per hour per person or simply per building. This portal is modeled after similar portals used in overseas colleges like American University, Penn State University and Arizona State University.
Tan Shuming, a Year 3 Geography major, believes students will work to reduce consumption. “Students staying in Prince George’s Park residences pay a fixed fee regardless of the amount of electricity and water consumed. It is difficult to know whether a particular block or cluster is using too much,” she explained. “With the new portal, they monitor their block’s usage closely and try to ensure they will not end up being the block with largest consumption.”
However, Seah Hui Shian, a Year 3 Communications and New Media major, is skeptical about the effectiveness. “It still requires personal effort and time to access the data, so it may not be so easy to get those who are not conscious of saving energy to start doing so,” she said. “In short, students’ habits may not change since they are not paying for the electricity and water bills for NUS.”
Real-time Metering Data for Every NUS Building
NUS students will soon be able to access data on how much electricity and water they use in school. Halls and other campus residences can also see how much energy they use relative to one another. With such visual comparison, there is a new element of friendly competition among halls to save the most energy.
The Office of Environmental Sustainability in NUS will launch a new online portal said to be the first of its kind in Singapore’s institutions. By next February, the school’s metering infrastructure data will be imported into a real-time monitoring and display system, Marcus Tay, a sustainability executive, said.
Staff and students will be able to “have information on utilities consumption of every building at their fingertips,” said Tay. The new infrastructure aims to reduce energy consumption on campus.
The online portal will display in real-time the breakdown of electricity and water consumed by every building in NUS. This system covers all 92 buildings from the various campuses of NUS. Data will be updated every 15 to 20 minutes.
“You won’t get to know how much energy consumption you saved during Earth Hour until you get your bills at the end of that month,” said Tay, in reference to the campaign in March that urged citizens worldwide to switch off the lights for an hour.
Currently, it is difficult to gauge accurately the consumption saved on a particular day, but the portal will give real-time data for immediate knowledge. “We can also easily identify which building consumes the most energy,” Tay added. “Past data will also be visible.”
The consumption data will be shown for individual faculties according to the month of the year. Information on each month will be compared to that of the same month in the previous year to measure the reduction in consumption. This applies to halls of residence as well.
The Office raised concerns about whether students will have to pay for viewership of this data. At the feedback session on Oct. 10, the team also sought student opinions on how specific the information display should be – down to kilowatt per hour per person or simply per building. This portal is modeled after similar portals used in overseas colleges like American University, Penn State University and Arizona State University.
Tan Shuming, a Year 3 Geography major, believes students will work to reduce consumption. “Students staying in Prince George’s Park residences pay a fixed fee regardless of the amount of electricity and water consumed. It is difficult to know whether a particular block or cluster is using too much,” she explained. “With the new portal, they monitor their block’s usage closely and try to ensure they will not end up being the block with largest consumption.”
However, Seah Hui Shian, a Year 3 Communications and New Media major, is skeptical about the effectiveness. “It still requires personal effort and time to access the data, so it may not be so easy to get those who are not conscious of saving energy to start doing so,” she said. “In short, students’ habits may not change since they are not paying for the electricity and water bills for NUS.”
The Office of Environmental Sustainability in NUS will launch a new online portal said to be the first of its kind in Singapore’s institutions. By next February, the school’s metering infrastructure data will be imported into a real-time monitoring and display system, Marcus Tay, a sustainability executive, said.
Staff and students will be able to “have information on utilities consumption of every building at their fingertips,” said Tay. The new infrastructure aims to reduce energy consumption on campus.
The online portal will display in real-time the breakdown of electricity and water consumed by every building in NUS. This system covers all 92 buildings from the various campuses of NUS. Data will be updated every 15 to 20 minutes.
“You won’t get to know how much energy consumption you saved during Earth Hour until you get your bills at the end of that month,” said Tay, in reference to the campaign in March that urged citizens worldwide to switch off the lights for an hour.
Currently, it is difficult to gauge accurately the consumption saved on a particular day, but the portal will give real-time data for immediate knowledge. “We can also easily identify which building consumes the most energy,” Tay added. “Past data will also be visible.”
The consumption data will be shown for individual faculties according to the month of the year. Information on each month will be compared to that of the same month in the previous year to measure the reduction in consumption. This applies to halls of residence as well.
The Office raised concerns about whether students will have to pay for viewership of this data. At the feedback session on Oct. 10, the team also sought student opinions on how specific the information display should be – down to kilowatt per hour per person or simply per building. This portal is modeled after similar portals used in overseas colleges like American University, Penn State University and Arizona State University.
Tan Shuming, a Year 3 Geography major, believes students will work to reduce consumption. “Students staying in Prince George’s Park residences pay a fixed fee regardless of the amount of electricity and water consumed. It is difficult to know whether a particular block or cluster is using too much,” she explained. “With the new portal, they monitor their block’s usage closely and try to ensure they will not end up being the block with largest consumption.”
However, Seah Hui Shian, a Year 3 Communications and New Media major, is skeptical about the effectiveness. “It still requires personal effort and time to access the data, so it may not be so easy to get those who are not conscious of saving energy to start doing so,” she said. “In short, students’ habits may not change since they are not paying for the electricity and water bills for NUS.”