Project Journal

The Shelburne Power Awareness Project (SPAP) began as collaboration among the Reduce the Juice Project (RTJ), the Environmental Club at Centre Dufferin District High School and the University of Waterloo. The project was sponsored by the Ontario Conservation Bureau and Hydro One. The intent of the Project was to use BlueLine Power Monitors to raise awareness of electricity consumption and to encourage conservation. The SPAP had two parts. The first part used monitors in high school classes to raise awareness and teach students the basics of energy measurement and conservation. The second part placed monitors in homes in a community based action to encourage residential conservation.

SPAP Project Background:

In 2006, RTJ proposed this project to continue our work in Shelburne because of the high level of community support for energy conservation, to provide an opportunity for the students from the high school to engage with their community and to evaluate the effectiveness of the PowerCost Monitors as an energy conservation tool. Hydro One agreed to provide 100 Monitors for the school and community project and the Ontario Conservation Bureau provided the funding.

The PowerCost Monitor allows real-time direct feedback of household electricity consumption via a small table top display device. It tells at a glance how much electricity their home is being used in dollars and cents and in kW. The Monitor consists of two units (i) A detection/transmitter attached to the utility meter which tracks the energy consumed by counting turns of the meter disk. (ii) A display unit, located inside the home, which receives a wireless signal from the transmitter and displays the consumption information.

The Centre Dufferin District High School Environmental Club was happy to take on the responsibility of bringing this new technology to the community and from the outset was involved in project development, delivery, and analysis. Six students from the environmental club under the guidance of Kim Sayers, teacher and club supervisor, were employed to install the monitors at 30 volunteer households and keep track of their electricity consumption by taking weekly meter readings.

For the school based component of the project, three local schools - Centre Dufferin District High School, Westside District High School and Orangeville Dufferin District High School - agreed to use Monitors donated to them to determine potential curriculum applications. The Monitors were to be used to support teachings in measurement, quantitative analysis and identification. Potential applications would include science, math and technology.

In December, the students (Brooke Crewson, Nancy Cruz, Steve Krysak, Rebecca Higginson-Rollins, Sarah Pugsley, Jessi Varey) began developing the outreach, publicity and advertising materials for the project. They worked with Randy Dryburgh (RTJ) and Professor Jennifer Lynes (University of Waterloo) to ensure that all the materials would meet the University Office of Research Ethics criteria and would be clear to the residents who would agree to participate in the project.

On January 8, at the first Shelburne Town Council meeting of 2007, Brooke, Nancy and Rebecca explained SPAP and asked for the Council's support. They were very well received and all of the Councilors agreed to participate in the project. This initiative resulted in the first news stories about the project and together with ads in the local papers resulted in calls from residents agreeing to participate. The project was off and running.

The students worked in teams of two to explain to participants how the PowerCost Monitors worked, to get agreements signed to allow them to read the household electric meters and to complete questionnaires of the participants electricity use profile. They began recording meter readings immediately and also, when necessary, returned to homes to troubleshoot problems with the meters or to address questions of the participants. The original goal of 50 households had to be reduced however because after the original flush of participants, the number of residents interested dropped off.

Over the next few months things went relatively smoothly despite problems associated with the Monitors (a number malfunctioned and had to be replaced, a number responded badly to the cold and stopped functioning) and with a few participants who did not call the students to report malfunctioning Monitors.

On May 26, as the project neared completion the SPAP team was asked to be part of a Renewable Energy Day organized by the Ontario Highlands Friends of Wind Power. The team was asked to explain the project and the contribution that conservation could play in Ontario's energy future. Brooke and Steve made the presentation and answered questions from the audience.

During May and June the team members visited the participants to remove their Monitors, have each complete a closing questionnaire and to complete their meter readings for each household. After a draw including all of the participants PowerCost Monitors were awarded to three winners. Each of the high schools was also given five PowerCost Monitor to continue evaluating their usefulness in the classroom. Ten Monitors were given to the CDDHS Environment to thank the Club for its support. The club may sell the Monitors and use the proceeds for a club environmental project or may be given to the school library to purchase books in the subject areas of energy and the environment.

After a final meeting with Professor Lynes to debrief the SPAP team formally concluded the project. See (link to the results analysis) for information on the SPAP results.

The project provided a unique opportunity for the students to interact with their community and collaborate with a university professor even before they were out of high school! The preliminary results of the project were compiled and featured in a poster display at the University of Waterloo's Energy Days, click here for the poster. The project was also featured in a report put out by the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy go to their website for a full report.