Administrative & Academic Kill-a-Watt

History

MHC's Kill-a-Watt competition has an impressive history. One of the longer-running student energy conservation competitions in the country, it was established in 1995 and has saved over $930,000 to date. Kill-a-Watt is a monthly contest in which residence halls compare their monthly electric use against their previous year's. September through June, the residence hall with the highest percent reduction wins a cash prize. For more information, visit Residence Hall Kill-a-Watt Competition.

At Mount Holyoke, residence halls make up 42% of our building space (gross square footage, GSF), but use only 26% of the electricity. Res halls are below average when it comes to electrical energy intensity . . . and that's good!

How Does Your Building Stack Up?

Administrative buildings have average energy use; they make up 15% of our footprint and use 15% of the electricity. The three most electricity-intensive admin buildings are Newhall Center, Willits-Hallowell, and Dwight Hall .

The academic buildings are the highest energy users; they comprise 43% of the space but use 59% of our electricity. The top five are all above the MHC average per sq. ft. electricity use: The Science Complex, the Art Building, Williston Library, Kendall Hall, and Talcott Arboretum.

Let's Kill-a-Watt!

Since so much of our energy consumption occurs in the academic and administrtive buildings that we have decided to expand the Kill-a-Watt competition to include another division.

We challenge Mount Holyoke faculty and staff to join the students in the monthly quest to maximize energy efficiency and minimize energy waste.

We will be posting monthly electricity use for each building and comparing it to the building's electricity use for that month the previous year.