by Natalie Lau
Contributing Writer

Statistics from an ECON 200 student research project last quarter show that the campus is spending more money than is necessary on its electricity bill because many students and faculty aren’t turning off the lights in their classrooms.

Peak hours on a regular school day are from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Therefore, most of the college’s electricity costs should come from this period. However, an ECON 200 fieldwork survey shows that students and faculty fail to turn off the lights in empty classrooms.

ECON 200 students observed buildings 1100, 1400, 1500, 1700 and 1800 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. to see which classrooms’ lights was on without any people inside. Afterwards, they went to each classroom to see how many light bulbs and switches were in one room.

Students calculated that about $627 is spent each year on campus lighting in five campus buildings and $405 is wasted each year from not turning the lights off.

A common myth is that the campus leaves lights on for security reasons. However, some people don’t turn off the lights because they’re in a rush to leave class and “forget” to turn them off; in economic terms, it is all about the cost and benefit where turning off the lights cost them time and does not benefit them.

ECON 200 students observed through the survey is that some classrooms only have a few people working in them, but all the lights are on.

“One third of the classrooms lights were on while there was no one is in the room after school peak hour,” said Catherine Lui, a student who worked on the project.

Changing all regular light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs may lower SCC’s monthly electricity bill. However, this still doesn’t relieve the campus of the costs that pile up when lights are left on in an empty room.

“Most of the light bulbs in the classrooms are more than 100 watts,” said Lui. “There are more than 10 light bulbs [that] are being used in a classroom, but they can be replaced by the compact light bulb, [which has] the same amount of the brightness for less power.”

To resolve this problem, Lui and her teammates suggest that SCC consider installing motive detection lights in its classrooms. At a onetime cost of $2,364, these lights will automatically turn off if their detectors can’t sense any movement in the room.

ECON 200 students believe that their proposal will be beneficial in the long run. SCC will only have to pay for a fixed amount because after five years, the money that they save will be equal to the costs for installing the detection lights.