Universities wasting power through air-con use, green group says

Universities have been wasting electricity by keeping some parts of campuses at temperatures as low as 18 degrees Celsius, according to an environmental concern group.

Green Sense's investigations recorded that temperature in corridors in the Cheng Yu Tung Tower of the Centennial Campus of the University of Hong Kong.

The group also discovered many vacant classrooms in which the air conditioners had been left switched on, and ventilators keeping empty corridors cooled overnight.

Roy Tam Hoi-pong, president of Green Sense, described the situation as a waste of the public funds used for running the tertiary institutions.

Wan Tsz-ying, external vice-president of a green society at Chinese University, also expressed her concern.

"The air-con in some academic buildings is really cold … even if you only pass by the buildings without entering them, you can already feel the streams of cold air," she said.