Motion sensors-
There are already motion sensors in a lot of buildings here on campus, but in most residence halls, the lights stay on all night in the hallways, bathrooms, and lounges. Motion sensors allow for the convience of not having to worry if someone turned off the lights or not, they turn off soon after the last person exits the area.(http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/lighting_daylighting/index.cfm/mytopic=12210) Motion or occupancy sensors would save a lot of money if placed in areas such as hallways, bathrooms and lounges and if they were set to stay on for 10-15 minutes, we could save a lot of energy. It makes sense that having lights on makes things feel safer, but if no one is in the area, why waste light no one is around to see? If motions sensors are put in, the lights will go on and off as students come and go. And, with the lower wattages in the below section, lots of energy can be saved.
Lower wattage bulbs-
Here at UVM, we generally have T8 light bulbs in our lighting fixtures. They are about 32 watts which uses 7.7 kilowatts in one day if left on. Now, multiplying that by the price of 1 kilowatt hours price of 11.43 cents(http://www.vtep.org/VTElectricityPricingJune08.pdf), it costs about 87.78 cents per day to leave the light on. Multiplying that by 365 days, and then dividing by 100 cents in a dollar, it costs 320.4 dollars to leave that light bulb on for an entire year, and that's just one light bulb. Now think about the entire campus. I know in my room, there are two bulbs, so it would cost me 640.8 dollars just to have my lights on for the entire year. We know that we don't leave our lights on for 24 constant hours but what if we did? Such as the hallway lights here which never seem to turn off. Maybe finding a lower wattage bulb might be a better idea for UVM to think about. If we sacrificed just a little bit of light, done to a T5, which is 28 watts, how much money could the college save? Well, at 28 watts, these bulbs are only using 6.72 watts in a day. Multiply that by the price of 11.43 cents and that is 76.81 cents per day (see a trend here?). Now multiply this by 365 and divide by 100 to get only 280.36 dollars per year for a bulb that is only 4 watts lower than the ones we have now. That's a difference of 360 dollars we could possibly be saving just with lower wattage bulbs, for just one bulb. Remember, this is if the bulbs were on for 24 constant hours.
Sky lights-
This is not a new idea, but one that has been forgotten. We have all seen the big windows in the Davis Center and how it lets in so much natural light that the lights are rarely on. Why not try this on other buildings or at least lounges of res-halls? Windows like these should be properly placed however. Just putting in extra windows won't do much if they are on the North side of a building. By putting windows on the South side of a building, more light can be let in, since the sun goes East to West and does so in the direction of the south. (http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/lighting_daylighting/index.cfm/mytopic=12290) The only real costs to something like this is the initial costs of the new energy efficient windows. Also, bigger windows tend to cost more due to their size but these prices should quickly be paid off by not turning on the light switch as much as before.
