Aside from data centers, labs use more energy than other sectors.

  • Each scientist uses 7-25x the per-person climate-maintenance guidelines from the Paris Climate Accord.
  • Reducing lab energy consumption decreases the carbon footprint, making full renewable energy conversion more attainable. 

40 %

of campus energy consumption goes to research buildings

[1]

Make meaningful changes by focusing on easy, low-hanging fruit.

  • Power off autoclaves after hours.
  • Turn off biosafety cabinets after use/hours.
  • Turn up ultralow temperature (ULT) freezers to -65C or -70C.
Powerlines and smokestacks from coal power plant

Read more about energy efficient strategies below!

Cell culture bay with hoods and incubators
Wattmeter reading for small pieces of laboratory equipment

Not sure where to start?

Buy watt meters ($10), or reach out to borrow ours! 

Consider WattIQ software, which continuously tracks energy consumption, peak usage, and demands of laboratory equipment spread across multiple areas. A potential good fit for larger laboratories with lots of equipment and schedule variability.

WattIQ Software

Be smart about equipment usage

For the UI Cystic Fibrosis and Lung Biology Core, several large laminar-flow tissue culture hoods were constantly on. However, the majority of their use was from 7am-5pm. Because hoods could go from off to sterile in as few as 5-10 minutes, powering down hoods after-hours saves, roughly the same amount of energy it takes to power the average US household for one year![2]

  • Turn off equipment when not in use, such as shakers.
  • Keep lids and doors of water baths, autoclaves, incubators, tissue culture hoods, and freezers closed whenever possible.
  • Put stickers with prompts "Turn off when not in use," "Turn off at the end of the day," to improve equipment lifetime and save energy.
  • Consider purchasing plug-in timers for equipment.
Turning off tissue culture hoods when not in use

Invest in energy-efficient equipment and perform routine maintenance

Energy efficiency not only is better for the environment, but can save a lot of money over time, even if you pay more out of pocket. For example, Mayo Clinic is projected to save $6 million over 10 years by purchasing the most efficient, rather than the cheapest ULT models.

You can also save a significant amounts of energy and prolong the lifetime of your equipment through routine maintenance. Cleaning a residential refrigerator's condenser coils can improve energy efficiency by 10% (this is also a service that you can request by work order on a rolling basis with maintenance).[3] 

Periodic defrosting helps increase the space available within a freezer and gives staff the perfect opportunity to sort through old samples and remove those that no longer need to be stored.

Frozen refrigerator that needs to be defrosted
Clean Refrigerator Fins and Coils
Ultra low temperature freezer screen displaying -79 degrees Celcius
Researcher removing samples from ULT storage
Stability information

Set ultra-low temperature freezers to -70

Freezer Challenge
Worldwide Map of Freezer Challenge Participation
Map of International Freezer Challenge Participation (ULT freezers set to -70)

References

  1. University of Colorado Boulder. (n.d.). University of Colorado Boulder - Green Labs Program. Environmental Center. https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/programs/cu-green-labs-program
  2. U.S. Energy Information Administration. (n.d.). Frequently asked questions (faqs) - U.S. energy information administration (EIA). Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3
  3. Factsheet the importance of cleaning coils. Energy.gov. (n.d.). https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/hvac-factsheet-cleaning-coils.pdf