We know a great deal about how electricity is consumed at Freie Universität. For example, since the beginning of the semester, the weekday electricity load of the institute buildings on our main campus in Dahlem can be summarized as follows: from 6:00 a.m. onwards, the power load increases considerably, reaching a peak of 4.7 to 5.3 megawatts (MW) around midday. After 4:00 p.m., consumption decreases dramatically to a base load of around 2.5 to 2.7 MW, which remains more or less unchanged – albeit slightly reduced – even over the weekend. This means that more than half of the electricity consumed by the university is consumed around the clock.

This purportedly high base load can be accounted for by the continuous IT operations that need to be run in our data centers, security lighting, heating pumps, and the basic ventilation required in laboratories and hazardous materials storage units. However, this high base load is also a sign that more equipment may be running than is actually required. This is why it is especially important that office and lab equipment are always switched off at the end of the working day and over the weekend – and not just left on stand-by.