In a large portion of consumer products that draw power, energy is by far the largest impact during that product"s lifecycle. Conscious energy reduction is one important way consumers can lower the impact of their purchases.
The Earth$aver Dorm Dongle is a plug through dongle with a meter attached that allows institutions such as universities and colleges to hold individuals accountable for their personal energy use. Currently power usage across a campus is hard to track and because of the lack of individual accountability and so students remain unaware of their power use and do very little to reduce it. In fact, many will neglect such common measures as turning out the light when leaving the room.
When used in a university setting each incoming student is issued with a metered dongle that is associated with their student account. This dongle would be carried with them like their keys or ID card. As a student enters a room they turn on the light switch. This will turn on the lights, but only for two minutes. After that time, the lights dim and go out slowly unless the student plugs their dongle into one of the wall sockets in the room. The same is true of power; the student may use power from an outlet for two minutes before they must plug into power through their dongle. All the time that power is being drawn through the dongle or the lights are on, the energy used is tracked. Each student is given a reasonable energy allotment for the semester. If their tracked energy use is higher than this allotment, the student is charged for their excess use. If their use is under they are rewarded with a rebate in the form of Convenience Dollars (currency that is used on most college campuses used for laundry, food, etc.) The state of their energy balance is displayed on the dongle meter.
Some spaces considered “public” would be exempt from the necessity of the dongle like the library or classrooms. In other shared spaces such as team rooms, lighting would be split between all the dongles plugged into a wall. Students could also rent additional Earth$aver enabled power strips for their rooms so that they could leave products like their alarm clocks plugged in during the day.
At the end of the student"s stay in the Earth$aver enabled dorms they would return their dongles and power strips and receive their deposit.
The dongle would require retrofitting of old dorms or specific fitting of new dorms with smart light switches and power outlets that would be able to communicate with the dongle and with the students" accounts. Student stores would stock additional Earth$aver supplies as well as CF bulbs and other energy efficient products to help encourage students to do their part to save energy. Statistics could also be tracked by the administration to help set school-wide energy goals.
