elecTUM

View the final Project Report of #class21 Team "ElecTUM"

Our Website

electum.ja.tum.de

Our research question

How could we have made the TUM more sustainable following the COVID-19 pandemic?

Our goal

Develop a model of student scenario-based behaviors that influence our energy consumption with the aim of encouraging the university and its students to take climate action based on these findings.

What have we been working on?

Team elecTUM was a research group composed of 8 students from 7 different courses and 4 nationalities! We started as "Team Climate" with the goal of investigating a disruptive situation that impacted the climate. After several weeks of discussion rounds, we decided to focus on the effect of different lecture formats on TUM students' energy consumption. Specifically, we wanted to find the hybrid format between online and on-site lectures that maximized energy efficiency in university teaching. To answer this question, we implemented a calculator that predicted the energy consumption of TUM lectures based on how they were delivered. The team was divided into three subgroups, two of which gathered data for the calculator.

Team data handling

The first subgroup ("data gathering/analysis") collected fundamental data for the model calculation. They investigated the electricity consumption of a model lecture hall and a model student apartment, student transportation, and streaming of online lectures. The electricity consumption of lecture halls was estimated using an Interims lecture hall as a representative. As TUM did not have detailed electricity consumption data, the group manually calculated it. For the model student apartment, data from Studentenwerk apartments served as a basis, but required manual calculation. The group also conducted an extensive literature research to identify the energy consumption of video streaming.

Team survey

In addition to the data subgroup, the "survey" group focused on student-based data collection, including student transportation, device use, and energy consumption at home. They developed a plan for scheduling, survey design, review rounds, and testing. The survey was designed on the evasys.de platform to ensure a representative number of participants. The goal was to make the survey simple and engaging while providing necessary data for the calculator. A small group of participants was used to test the survey and provide feedback.

Team calculator

The "calculator" subgroup developed a web-application to analyze the gathered data. The application calculates the overall energy consumption of both online and on-site lectures using a linear model and frequentist inference. The results' uncertainties were estimated using linear error propagation. The interactive web interface allows for flexible user input of variable parameters. The calculator was made publicly available at the end of the project.