One of the College’s most challenging sustainability problems is the energy which is wasted heating unoccupied rooms.
However, a solution is in sight, and now up and running throughout most college buildings. Corpus is working with EcoSync, an Oxford-based clean tech start-up company, whose smart heating system for buildings facilitates room-by-room heating use monitoring, allowing heating to be turned off when there is no one in the room.
EcoSync’s system of intelligent controllers was installed during the Long Vacation, with one attached to each individual radiator and wirelessly connected to a cloud-based monitoring system. This makes it possible to schedule, adjust and monitor temperatures on a bespoke room-by-room basis. A small module in each room takes readings every three to five minutes, providing information to the control system on the energy output of the radiator(s) as well as the air temperature in the room. Users can fine-tune the temperature in their rooms through the unique QR code assigned to each radiator, which can simply be scanned with a mobile phone.
Peter Nitsche-Whitfield, the College's Sustainability Coordinator says: “EcoSync is allowing us to easily stop heating unoccupied rooms and set empty rooms to a freeze protection setting during vacations. We hope this will reduce our gas use and thus our carbon emissions, taking us closer to decarbonisation."