Southampton Blackout

7th June 2012

"For the past six years we have completed a waste audit at the University of Southampton, and we’ve always been impressed with the number of our students who are prepared to give up their Wednesday afternoon to sort through rubbish!

So, what could be simpler than applying this to our energy usage?

This unguarded comment led a small team of staff and students at Southampton to organise the Southampton Blackout – a major logistical exercise, designed to blackout our entire Highfield campus.

On Friday 27 April, 250 of our staff and students gave up their evening to take part in the exercise, switching off all office equipment that had unnecessarily been left on before the weekend. We think this was the biggest event of its kind in the higher education sector

The headline results

We compared energy usage on the Highfield campus over the weekend of 28-29th April (after the Blackout) with the average of four comparable weekends.

• We found that energy usage after the Blackout was 6% lower than the comparable weekends.
• The 6% reduction over the weekend saved 7 tonnes of carbon and 16,000 kWh of energy – enough to power 5 family homes for a year.
• In financial terms, the reduction saved more than £1,600 – that’s the equivalent of more than £84,000 over the course of a year.

What does this mean?

We didn’t power-down any major pieces of equipment or entire buildings during the blackout – our volunteers were simply turning off PCs, monitors and lights that had been left on before the weekend.

The results are encouraging – they suggest that most of our staff are already in the habit of ensuring the things are switched off at the end of the day. But the results also show that there’s more to be done, and we need to continue to demonstrate to our staff that just a few simple, individual acts can have a major impact on our carbon footprint."

If you have any questions about the Blackout, please contact Dr Neil Smith, Environment Manager (nfs@soton.ac.uk).