Days of the Week: Wurster’s Peak Electricity-Use
aweiCED students practically live in Wurster Hall, since all disciplines within the College require a studio course in one form or another. Given that knowledge, coupled with the fact that the College itself hosts many public and private affairs, such as its CED Lecture Series and various workshops, meetings, and student clubs, one can say that Wurster Hall uses quite a bit of electricity.
Based on the level of activity and the time of the week, I predicted that Wurster Hall tends to use the most electricity during the middle of the week, Wednesdays. To test this, I chose to analyze the electricity-use during the Spring 2010 semester, from January to May, and for each month, I analyzed the week of the third to last Sunday – roughly the middle of the month.
I downloaded Wurster’s Electric Demand Meter data for the months of January to May 2010 and found that my hypothesis is generally true – there seemed to be more electricity used during Wednesdays than another other days of the week during most of the months in question. The months of April and May did not have Wednesdays as their peak in electricity-use. I should also note here that the drastic change in electricity-use for May is due to the fact that the semester had already ended during that particular sample week; hence it does not reflect the regular Wurster Hall activity level.
An explanation as to why Wednesdays tend to be the peak days in electricity use may be that there is slightly less activity during the beginning of the week, as the week is just starting out, and as the week is coming to a close, people just want to get out of Wurster and relax; hence the possible decrease in activity during that period of days. In addition, Wednesdays are also hosts to studio sessions as well as the CED lecture series at night, which may explain an increase in activity and electricity use.
January 17 – 23
Sunday – 202.049kW at 17:00
Monday – 195.05kW at 14:00
Tuesday – 325.084kW at 13:15
Wednesday – 338.024kW at 14:00
Thursday – 316.8kW at 14:15
Friday – 301.395kW at 10:30
Saturday – 215.044kW at 15:15
February 14 -20
Sunday – 252kW at 15:45
Monday – 194.161kW at 18:30
Tuesday – 330.832 at 16:00
Wednesday – 332.679kW at 14:30
Thursday– 318.926kW at 15:30
Friday – 308.571kW at 12:15
Saturday – 255.88kW at 16:15
March 14 -20
Sunday – 258.912kW at 15:15
Monday – 323.282kW at 14:45
Tuesday – 331.568kW at 13:15
Wednesday – 337.276kW at 14:45
Thursday - 317.993kW at 11:30
Friday – 280.8kW at 10:45
Saturday – 197.695kW at 13:00
April 11-17
Sunday – 255.789kW at 16:45
Monday – 318.245kW at 14:30
Tuesday – 318.214kW at 11:15
Wednesday – 322.924kW at 11:15
Thursday – 323.282kW at 14:45
Friday – 306.872kW at 16:15
Saturday – 266.296kW at 13:00
May 16-22
Sunday – 194.616kW at 13:30
Monday – 258.625kW at 14:45
Tuesday – 246.168kW at 14:30
Wednesday – 237.864kW at 14:00
Thursday – 238.129kW at 14:15
Friday – 229.381kW at 14:15
Saturday – 180.2kW at 15:30
In analyzing the data, I also noticed that the greatest use in electricity also occurred roughly during the same time for each peak days for the week – around 2:00pm in the afternoon. In other words, the peak use in electricity on the peak day of the week occurs at a consistent time of the day. It is gathered that the highest electricity use in Wurster Hall occurs on Wednesdays around 2:00pm to 3:00pm.
However, the same cannot be said about the highest electricity use of each day of the week. The peak use in electricity during the other days of the week fluctuates from the late mornings to late afternoon/early evenings. This fact coupled with the consistency in peak times during the peak day of the week might suggest that Wednesdays are also rather routine in activities; Wednesdays are predictable (in electricity use).