The continuous growth of the world population has led to a huge increase in the global energy consumption, especially in urban areas, reducing the ability of natural ecosystems to regenerate and decompose wastes. Such situation is causing public health and environmental problems derived from pollution and poor waste disposal procedures, not to mention high economic and social costs.
As part of its social responsibility commitment, UANL implemented a policy of efficient energy use a few years ago to promote the responsible use of this resource and raise awareness among its community, which has also resulted in important cost and energy savings. Moreover, UANL has reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from its daily activities.
One of the many promoted actions is the technical guidance on efficient energy use at university facilities, making subtle changes that allow significant energy savings. For example, the recommended air conditioning temperature is 24ºC during summer and 20ºC during winter.
Regarding artificial lighting, UANL encourages the use of daylight instead thanks to the design of its newest buildings. Other recommendations are to keep all lights and equipment turned off unless they need to be used, disable screensavers, use laptops or LCD monitors, and activate power saving mode.
Every six months, UANL publishes reports on the changes in its electricity consumption to show students and staff the significant energy savings that result from their participation.
Furthermore, the Vice Presidency of Sustainability created five technical guidelines that promote efficient energy use to ensure the environmental policies are being properly applied at all UANL facilities. For instance, the Technical Guidelines on Air Conditioning Equipment and the Technical Guidelines on Classroom Lighting have directly prompted the decrease in electricity consumption since such equipment represents 75 percent of the university’s total energy use.
In 2020, UANL’s electricity consumption amounted to 62,722,006 kWh, thus decreasing in consumption by more than 36 million from 2019 to 2020;this as a result of the students spending two semesters in the non-school mode, online, to provide a sense of normalcy within the confinement due to COVID-19.
Likewise, per capita electricity consumption amounted to 276 kWh during the same year.
Of the total energy consumed by the UANL in 2020, 35% was generated using renewable energy sources, according to the report provided by the provider of this service.
Source: prepared by SENER with data from CFE, CRE,
CENACE and the Undersecretariat of Planning and Energy Transformation.
Society’s awareness of the importance of renewable energy is growing every day. This effective alternative helps fight climate change and enables the socio-economic development based on sustainable and renewable energy sources.
Renewable energy is a clean, eco-friendly alternative for the future that reduces human health risks. It is imperative to integrate this type of technology into the social, industrial, and higher education sectors.
Therefore, UANL is implementing initiatives to use renewable energy despite the sizable investment required due to its large facilities and the long return on investment expected. Nevertheless, several university entities have installed electric and thermal power generation systems comprised of solar panels and wind turbines.
Additionally, UANL is currently requesting administrative and legal consulting in order to generate renewable energy at a low cost and with great environmental benefits.
