Tech helps to save energy at the Winter Olympics

Thursday, Feb. 18 2010 | Author: andy

With all the excitement of the opening ceremony and on-piste sporting action, it’s easy to forget that the Vancouver Olympics was also touted as being one of the greenest on record.

To help with that, a system called the Venue Energy Tracker has been devised to monitor how much electricity is being used to provide heat, light and power to the Olympic Village and main venues.

The results are pretty impressive, too. In the first three days of the Games, a 20 per cent reduction in energy consumption has been marked thanks to sustainable practices.

In total that’s around 66,000 kw/h saved so far, with a target of 18 gigawatt hours of electricity saved by the end of the Games — enough to power 1,600 homes for a year.

With London also hoping to host a more environmentally-friendly event in two years’ time, it certainly sets a high standard.

It sure beats those little electricity consumption meters you might have sitting at home.

Oh, and if you like graphs (albeit not particularly clear ones), here’s one of the energy saved so far.