Watt’s up? Assessing Habits of Energy Usage in Residence Students Living in Shirreff Hall at Dalhousie University

Abstract

Energy consumption in higher-education campuses is consistently high in campus residential buildings where the students live full-time during the semester(s); making sustainable energy consumption a primary concern. This intensive operational energy consumption creates a dependency on fossil fuels in Nova Scotia, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and establishing a reliance on non-renewable energy sources to power residential buildings (Canada Energy Regulator 2024). Considering that Dalhousie’s Studley campus houses 2300 students a year (Willick 2021), the energy demand to keep residences in operation with this volume of occupants results in highly intensive energy consumption habits in students. We conducted a behavioral study of the students residing in Shirreff Hall of Dalhousie University, seeking to understand how residents perceived their own energy consumption habits and to determine any potential relation of previous residing areas, with a concern for differences within provincial level changes and their effect on individual’s perceived energy consumption habits. We collected data using a 40-question Microsoft Forms survey that allowed us to get insight into the behaviors of individuals. This survey asked participants about day-to-day and weekly habits that would give grounds for inferencing an individual’s energy consumption: such as concerns over energy sustainability, personal awareness of energy and phantom loads, habits regarding personal interactions with energy, and barriers to sustainable energy consumption. We used a two-sample unequal variance T-test correlation analysis, responses were analyzed to determine correlations and existing relationships between the residential history of participants, developing substantial reasoning for recommendations that aim to bring to attention how easily phantom loads are lost in residences buildings. This study found no statistical significance in the difference between the mean energy consumption of students from Maritime and Non-Maritime regions, suggesting that geographic origin has no influence on energy consumption habits, more research can be done on this topic. Additionally, we found that key barriers to energy conservation amongst students living in Shirreff Hall include convenience factors, lack of awareness, and absence of financial incentives. Based on our study results, we recommend educating students through proactive educational initiatives (i.e. strategically placed posters), interactive seminars during orientation weeks, and real-time energy consumption reports of the residence as tangible evidence of energy usage.

Key Words: Phantom Loads, Energy consumption habits, Sustainable energy, Behavior, Dalhousie University, Shirreff Hall Residence.