Spring 2007, Volume 10 Newsletter:
Renewable Energy at Harvard
Harvard continues to purchase renewable electricity credits (RECs), which represent the environmental attributes of a kwh of renewable energy to offset GHG emissions caused by our electricity use. In 2006, we purchased 20,500 MWh, which means that 6.6% of the University’s total electric use was supplied or offset by renewable sources.
Harvard participates in the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, which brings corporations, government agencies, and educational institutions together to encourage the purchase of renewable energy. This year, our purchases were not enough to place us on EPA’s Top Ten List of College and University Partners; however, Harvard is still the second largest purchaser of green power within the Ivy League!
The Business School, the Design School, the Divinity School, FAS, the Medical School, the Radcliffe Institute, and the School of Public Health all made renewable power purchases in 2006. Also, several buildings purchased green power independently. The solar array at the Business School produced 38 MWh of power in 2006.
In the coming year, HGCI will work to get Harvard back onto the Top Ten List of Colleges and University Green Power Partners.
University Operations Services (UOS) also finalized a purchase agreement to procure energy and renewable energy credits from the Hull wind turbine, bringing the benefits of green power closer to home. Even closer still UOS is also working to install a wind anemometer in Harvard’s athletics field to collect one year of wind data in efforts to determine the feasibility of wind turbines on Harvard’s own campus.
Looking forward the HGCI is working with the Allston development group to assess a range of renewable energy options for the new campus including deep well geothermal (or dry hot rock geothermal), biomass or biofuels, wind, sewer to heat recovery and solar thermal or photovoltaics. The HGCI’s project team working on renewable energy include, Emily Martin, Leith Sharp and starting July 2007, Dara Olmsted.