Behind the Curtain

How much energy does it take to power campus buildings?

Last semester, Office of Sustainability student interns and students in Professor Mary Ann Cunningham’s Introduction to Environmental Science course set out to determine how much energy was being used in the Bridge building where they were taking class. They used ICO Vision, software developed by ICO Energy and Engineering, to research and interpret energy data.

Interested members of the Vassar community can now use ICO Vision to track electricity consumption in more than 40 of Vassar’s buildings. A collaboration between the Office of Sustainability, Facilities Operations, and the Environmental Studies Program, the project includes electric sub-meters in Vassar buildings that stream real-time data to the ICO Vision online dashboard.

Professor Michael Roth, Research Associate and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, designed the three-hour lab for Cunningham’s course and measured the wattage of batteries and solar PV panels with students. “The electricity data from ICO Vision enabled students to work with real hourly data from the building they were physically sitting in, directly connecting the lab to real-world sustainability applications on campus,” he said.

The data will allow the Office of Sustainability and Facilities Operations to identify areas of the campus that consume excessive power.—Nandini Likki ’25