This year’s NYU Unplugged event will be bigger and louder than ever. Throughout the entire month of February, residence halls will compete to save the most energy and win free concert tickets. The theme this year is: “Whatever You Do, Do It In the Dark.”

NYU Residence Halls Unplug for Month-long Energy Reduction Competition in February

Competition Will Award Free Concert Tickets to Winning Residence Hall

“We want to encourage students to take the additional step beyond just unplugging and conserving unnecessary ‘vampire power,’ which is created when turned-off appliances use their stand-by power while plugged in,” said Ozgem Ornektekin, director of the NYU Office of Sustainability. “We want to encourage students to alter the way they use electricity so they no longer use unnecessary power on an ongoing basis.”

The contest will award free tickets to the residence hall that lowers its electricity use by the greatest amount. Each hall’s reduction will be calculated against an average of its last three years of February usage. The artist featured in the concert will be revealed on February 14th—halfway through the competition.

The Office of Sustainability is helping students find new and creative ways to conserve energy, as well as gain a deeper understanding of energy challenges we all face. Daily results of the competition will be tracked online and will be available on the Office of Sustainability’s Unplugged website (nyu.edu/unplugged). The ultimate goal of NYU Unplugged is to encourage and empower students to change their energy consumption patterns.

“Initially conceived by a Gallatin student and established in 2008 through an NYU Green Grant (nyu.edu/sustainability/greengrants), NYU Unplugged is now an annual contest and has grown substantially every year,” said Jessie Baker, coordinator of the NYU Office of Sustainability. “We are very excited that NYU Unplugged will again use live streaming data from each building. Real-time data make the results of the competition more immediate and enable students to clearly see how they are directly reducing NYU’s energy consumption."

For more information about NYU Unplugged 2014, please contact Philip Lentz at 212.998.6833/ Philip.lentz@nyu.edu or Jessie Baker at 212.998.1437/ Jessie.baker@nyu.edu.

For more information on the NYU Office of Sustainability, please visit www.nyu.edu/sustainability.

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Press Contact

Phil Lentz
Phil Lentz
(212) 998-6833