Abstract:
Energy has become basis of human life today. Practically, we rely on energy for everything
we do every single day. As a result, the rate of consumption of energy has increased manifold
and thereby has become a global problem. Recent research work has explored solutions to
address the problem of increased energy consumption by providing e cient feedback about
consumption patterns to individuals so as to motivate them to alter the activities performed as
personal choices within the built environment. Prior studies indicate that University Residential
environment provide an excellent venue to explore di erent feedback mechanisms for energy
consumption. However, majority of the studies, typically done in the developed world, have
conducted competitions as approach to study and alter the behavior of Dormitory residents.
Our work contributes to the understanding of feedback mechanisms, in a developing economy,
through ten week study that we term as \Power Down". The goal of the study was to analyze
how di erent approaches in
uence and alter the behavior of dormitory residents to reduce energy
consumption in a university residential settings.
The study involved ve di erent phases, each spanning a duration of 2 weeks
Phase-1: General Awareness
Phase-2: Comparing individual and generalized feedback
Phase-3: Online Feedback
Phase-4: Competition Phase
Phase-5: Post-Competition Phase.
During each phase, real time energy consumption data was collected for the participating group
of students using electricity meters installed at the wing level. We believe this is the rst
such study, done in the context of developing country, that performs in-depth assessment of
e ectiveness of di erent feedback approaches towards motivating the dormitory residents in
reducing their energy consumption.
