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How Much Can a Campus Save on Utility Bills by Turning a 5-Workday Week Into a 4Workday Week
Abstract
The recent budget cuts campaign mandated
by the governor's office had all state agencies in
Texas looking for ways to reduce revenue
spending. One of the cost savings opportunities
perceived by many university officials is to
convert a typical 5-workday week into a 4-
workday week (e.g., Monday to Thursday) with
10 working hours each day during the
universities summer session. The potential
savings come from the fact that the universities
can be partially shut down during the prolonged
weekends (Friday to Sunday). It is believed that
the savings from partially shutting down an extra
workday is much more significant than the
marginal energy increase caused by the extended
working hours during workdays.
This paper analyzes the potential energy
cost savings of this approach for three real cases.
The savings can be largely estimated by
comparing whole-campus electricity
consumptions between typical weekdays and
weekends (or holidays). Energy overheads
caused by the extended working hours (two more
hours per working day) were also estimated. A
limited shutdown scenario (similar to a typical
weekend schedule) and a more aggressive
shutdown scenario (similar to a typical holiday
schedule) during the weekend periods are
presented. The potential savings opportunities
were from 0.32% to 1.53% of the annual
electricity bills for different universities.
Citation
Zhou, J.; Giebler, T.; Wei, G.; Turner, W. D. (2003). How Much Can a Campus Save on Utility Bills by Turning a 5-Workday Week Into a 4Workday Week. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /5192.