MSU students are developing Carbon Cash, a web and smartphone app that will help monitor how much electricity university buildings are using.
The hope is for fellow students to download the app and compete with one ?another to save energy.
Student-created app to monitor electricity use
The program will allow them to earn points and redeem rewards for being the most conservative energy users.
The idea began with Bernie Eisbrenner, a history junior, with an environmental ?economics specialization, who applied for Be Spartan Green project funding with the Office of Campus Sustainability.
The project is one of 29 finalists for the Michigan Collegiate Innovation Prize.
“The basis of the project is to give students an incentive to change their behavior,” Eisbrenner said.
“Most students don’t get an electric bill, so they’re detached from that. They don’t think about how much they spend on energy.”
Eisbrenner’s project was given funding from the university because it was a way for students to easily monitor energy consumption, said Assistant Director of Campus Sustainability Ann Erhardt.
“Just understanding your heating system or how opening a window might affect energy consumption can have an impact,” Erhardt said.
“The most obvious changes in behavior can be the best things, because with the sheer number of students on campus, those little things can make a cumulative difference.”
Computer science senior Jon Bauer worked with Eisbrenner to help code Carbon Cash and said the app will be able to take information every day.
“The application will pull information from a server that grabs a file given to us from the MSU power plant,” Bauer said.
“That file has all the smart meter data, so we can update app users on a daily basis.”
A smart meter is able to track electricity usage in real time, Bauer explained, which is why they’re testing Carbon Cash in colleges to start. Most ?universities use smart meter data, he said.
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“In residential areas, someone has to come out and read a meter and half the time they only use estimates,” Bauer said. “So you’re getting charged based on estimates.”
Eisbrenner said he hopes Carbon Cash will change students’ habits.
“Our core philosophy is to instill responsible energy consumption in students,” ?Eisbrenner said.
“We’re trying to tap into competitive human nature, to get people to think about using less energy than their neighbors.”
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