This capstone project focuses on analyzing and visualizing energy consumption across buildings on the UNC campus to identify opportunities for reducing energy usage and carbon emissions. The key goals were to pinpoint inefficient buildings, recommend cost-effective improvements, and support UNC’s broader sustainability initiatives.
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📊 Energy Usage Analysis: Used R to calculate Energy Usage Intensity (EUI) for various UNC campus buildings. Created boxplots to identify outliers with unusually high energy consumption, highlighting targets for efficiency improvements.
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📈 Data Visualization: Developed clear, informative boxplots and visual summaries in R to communicate patterns and anomalies in building energy use.
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💰 Cost-Benefit Analysis: Evaluated potential energy efficiency upgrades and their financial impacts, helping prioritize interventions with the greatest return on investment.
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🌟 Sustainability Recommendations: Proposed one of the identified outlier buildings as a candidate for the Champion Sustainability Fund to support UNC’s sustainability goals and funding allocation.
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🗺️ Mapping: Created detailed spatial visualizations of building locations and energy profiles using ArcGIS Pro, supporting geographic insights into energy use patterns across campus.
- R: For statistical analysis, EUI calculations, and creating boxplots
- ArcGIS Pro: For spatial mapping and geographic visualization of building energy data
The full project report detailing methodology, findings, and recommendations is available here: 📑 Capstone Final Report (UNC SharePoint)
Thank you to the UNC sustainability team and faculty advisors for their guidance and support throughout this project.