Campus Facilities Opt for Renewables, Energy Reduction

Besides developing new green curriculums, universities are opening a new chapter of energy efficiency and renewable energy use on campus.
For example, NREL partnered with New York's Cornell University on a step-by-step Climate Neutral Research Campuses Web site to help campus facility managers reduce the energy consumed by machines that run 24/7 with extensive heating and cooling systems.
The Web site, developed under Labs 21, a joint venture between DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program and EPA, is a great tool for research campuses since they consume more energy per square foot than most facilities.
But energy reduction is just part of the picture. Universities are also generating energy or purchasing energy from renewable resources.South Carolina's Clemson University is using a $45 million DOE grant for a 5- to 15-megawatt wind turbine drive train testing facility, set to begin operating in late 2012. Researchers will study how to enhance the performance and reliability of utility-scale wind turbines by testing the drive train, which takes energy generated by a turbine’s blades and increases the rotational speed to drive the electrical generator.
The DOE grant, combined with $53 million in matching funds, will support the facility at the former Charleston, S.C., Naval Base. Officials expect the project to create about 113 temporary jobs associated with facility construction and 21 full-time jobs.
In Texas, Southwestern University signed an agreement this month with the City of Georgetown to meet all its electricity needs for the next 18 years from wind power.
Now Southwestern is the first university in Texas to have all of its electricity supplied by wind power and one of fewer than 20 universities in the country to have a totally “green” source of power, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The University of Maryland also is seeking to meet its energy needs from wind. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that US Wind Force is expected to begin construction on a $131-million wind farm project in West Virginia as soon as a purchase agreement is signed with the university.
Other schools are turning to solar. Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, opened a 1.4 megawatt solar farm that generates approximately 11 percent of the electricity needed for the Livingston campus. The solar farm is one of the largest renewable energy systems on a U.S. campus. Similarly, the 294 kilowatts of solar arrays at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. are showing students a real-world application of solar energy generation.
Universities that aren’t generating renewable power are purchasing it for their facilities. Harvard University will buy about 24 million kwh per year, or half the power generated from the planned Stetson II wind farm in northern Maine, to meet 10 percent of the electricital needs of the Cambridge and Allston campuses.
In Colorado, the Auraria and Regis college campuses committed to buying 100-percent wind power. For Auraria, that equates to 40 million Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) under a three-year contract with Renewable Choice Energy, and for Regis, it's 11 million RECs under a two-year agreement with Community Energy.
These universities’ precedent-setting achievements in renewable energy and energy efficiency may continue dominating headlines as the nation moves closer to achieving its energy independence goals.