Five New England Colleges Form Solar Partnership

• By Will Mallas
• 05/03/18

Hampshire, Amherst, Smith, Williams, and Bowdoin Colleges have formed a partnership to purchase solar power from an offsite facility in order to improve campus sustainability and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The partnership, which has been named the New England College Renewable Partnership, entails the five colleges purchasing solar energy produced in a solar power facility in Farmington, ME. Through the partnership, the colleges hope to offset a combined 46,000 megawatt hours of electricity each year.

The partnership signifies the first collaboration between New England higher education institutions to purchase solar electricity. To the members of the collaboration, it represents a major step in colleges shifting toward increased sustainability on their campuses.

Working Together
“The involvement of four other highly regarded institutions in New England allows all of us to move forward with our climate action plans and multiplies the effect overall,” Amherst College President Biddy Martin said in a statement. “It also sends an important message that every institution and every individual can be an agent for positive forward movement on the urgent challenge of sustainability.”

As part of the collaboration, the schools will receive their solar energy from a solar facility built by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, a large utility company that produces clean energy through various alternative energy sources, such as solar facilities and wind farms. The facility that will produce the solar energy is expected to open in 2019.

Dwayne Breger, director of the UMass Clean Energy Extension and professor of environmental conservation, assured the viability of solar energy as both a source of renewable energy and as an industry.

“The amount of solar installed in Massachusetts, and in many other parts of the country and the world, has been growing exponentially, especially over the past seven to 10 years. There are over 70,000 projects installed in Massachusetts, so it is definitely a viable technology and quite frankly, it is a viable industry now,” Breger says.

Goals of the Partnership
The collaboration is expected to lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by each of the schools, including a 3,200-metric ton decrease in carbon dioxide emission at Amherst College.

According to Dano Weisbord, director of sustainability and campus planning at Smith College, the University also expects to reduce the campus’ environmental impact with the use of the solar energy purchased in the partnership.

Weisbord said that the purchase and use of solar energy “will drop our [sic] carbon footprint by about 10 percent. We make about 70 percent of our electricity on campus…and we buy about 30 percent, so the 30 percent that we buy will be entirely covered by this project, so that 30 percent will all come from solar.”

The partnership was initially spearheaded by Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash, who was later joined by Smith College President Kathleen McCartney to move the process forward.

According to Weisbord, Lash “felt that there was an opportunity for some of the local colleges and universities to do something relevant to renewable energy. So, he proposed it, and Kathleen McCartney took up the banner as well, and they charged several sustainability directors in the area to start looking into it.”

Lash, who plans to retire in June of this year, has pursued various sustainability projects at Hampshire College throughout his tenure as president. Such projects include providing 100 percent of Hampshire’s electrical needs through sustainable photovoltaic systems and converting mowed lawns on campus into natural meadows.

In addition to the environmental benefits of the collaboration, Lash sees it as an opportunity to set an example for the many students who attend these colleges.

“This is the challenge facing our students as they reshape the workforce in the next 20 years: How to turn the U.S. economy into a low-carbon economy,” Lash said in a statement.

“Spending so much time on campus, they learn from not only what we teach, but how we choose to live. We’re working together with them to address this serious challenge,” he added.

The Five Schools
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, MA. Amherst was ranked as the second best liberal arts college in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and 17th out of all U.S. colleges and universities by Forbes in their 2017 rankings.

Bowdoin College is a private liberal arts college located in Brunswick, ME. In 2017, the college has been ranked as third-best liberal arts college in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, MA. Fifty-six percent of its alumni have at least one graduate degree and it is ranked 30th among all U.S. colleges in the percentage of its graduates who go on to attain a doctorate degree (notably first among history doctorates).

Smith College is a private, independent women’s liberal arts college with coed graduate and certificate programs in Northampton, MA. In its 2017 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked it tied for 12th among the best National Liberal Arts Colleges.

Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, MA. The college was ranked first in 2017 in the U.S. News & World Report's liberal arts ranking for the 15th consecutive year, and third among liberal art colleges in the 2017 Forbes magazine ranking of America's Top Colleges.

This article first appeared in The Massachusetts Daily Collegian and is used with permission.