After two weeks of turning off lights, pulling plugs and climbing stairs, the Phillips Academy community is currently ranked fourth out of 29 schools in the Green Cup Challenge. Phillips Academy has reduced its energy usage by 18.53 percent and saved $4,407. After the first week, Phillips Academy was in third place. St. George’s and Ms. Porter’s took first place and second place, respectively, while Andover’s rival, Phillips Exeter Academy, did not crack the top 10. Carlos Montanez, Associate Director of Maintenance and Utilities, said that in this first week of the GCC, Phillips Academy did well. “In the first few weeks, we should see a steep decline in the use of energy, but as we move forward our conservation will become more of a steady decline,” he said. Montanez explained that OPP has “sub-metered” all of the large dorms on campus and some of the smaller dorms. This allows OPP to see how much energy each dorm is using and how much each conserves, based on past baseline numbers. A monitor on the first floor of Gelb shows the energy usage of these dorms on campus. After the first week, Paul Revere Hall used the most energy with 3326.60 kilowatt hours, while Draper Cottage used the least with 174.32 kilowatt hours. Paul Revere is one of the largest dorms on campus, while Draper is one of the smallest. The energy usage of the smaller dorms on campus is checked by E-Stewards, students from each cluster who act as school advocates for sustainability. Montanez noted that other facilities also contribute to the energy usage for the GCC. “To make it fair for the students, we have to subtract the energy used for the construction of Commons. Uncommons is currently using 68,500 KWH per week while Commons used 74,700 KWH per week when it was up and running. However, if you were to add the construction of Commons to the Uncommons energy usage, [the amount] would actually be more than Commons,” said Montanez. Because the energy used for the construction is being subtracted from Andover’s weekly totals, Uncommons is about 10 percent more energy-efficient than Commons was. John Bravo, Teaching Fellow in Athletics, said that he was really impressed with the steps taken to conserving energy and said that the fitness center is trying to shut off the lights more, weather-permitting. There are two weeks remaining in the competition for students to improve their conservation efforts. Joel Camacho ’08, a Flagstaff E-Steward, said, “I am really happy how we have done … but there is still a lot more we can do, especially in academic facilities. In the library and in classrooms, we should be turning off lights wherever we see that they are on.” Jeff Lu ’08 said that he can see a definite change in the way students are monitoring electricity use. “In my dorm, the hall lights are always off and the fans are unplugged,” said Lu. Michaeljit Sandhu ’09, another Flagstaff E-Steward, voiced his approval for the student body’s awareness of the GCC. However, he urged students not to become complacent. “I believe that students are definitely more informed about energy conservation than they were a few years ago,” said Sandhu. However, he added that E-Stewards need to assert the meaning of the Green Cup Challenge on campus after the competition is done. The E-Stewards have been raising sustainability awareness on campus all year. During Fall Term, they started the “Unplug PA” campaign to urge students to unplug electronics when not in use. They also recently began publishing Terra, a biweekly sustainability newsletter. This week’s Terra issue will discuss the presidential candidates’ views on sustainability. In addition to student efforts, there are large-scale faculty conservation efforts in motion. Rebecca Bogdanovitch, Sustainability Coordinator, said that last year, Kevin Cardozo, Instructor in Chemistry, and OPP reduced energy usage in Gelb Science Center. Bogdanovitch said, “They set it up so that the fume hoods would only be on while we were using them in lab. Before the system was set up, the hoods could have been on for weeks.”
