Under the Energy Infrastructure Projects Initiative, OU took steps to conserve energy and repair its infrastructure this summer.
Ohio University’s campus was buzzing with construction during the summer in preparation for quotas demanded by the university’s green energy policy.
The Energy Infrastructure Projects Initiative, established by the Board of Trustees in June of 2014, is a plan that lays out how the university will meet new Environmental Protection Agency regulations effective Feb. 1, 2016.
The initiative includes the university’s commitment to stop burning coal at the end of this year, said Joseph Lalley, associate vice president of Information Technologies and Administrative Services.
The first aspect of the initiative is the university’s energy conservation efforts, Lalley said.
“It’s the most important aspect in my mind because you save money by not burning the energy you don’t need to, and you help the environment by not emitting the things you don’t need to emit,” he said. “But it takes a lot of work to do that.”
Lalley said the two-week steam outage that the university enacted in May, which allowed for maintenance to be performed on the steam infrastructure of the campus, will realize savings and a reduction of emissions as a result of the fixed leaks.
The steam outage will cost the university an estimated $2 million, according to a previous Post report.
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Other projects this summer included improving the reliability of OU’s electric distribution and making progress on increasing efficiency of the university’s cooling system.
Lalley said over the next few months the university will work towards understanding how much of its electricity supply can come from renewables. This effort is accordance with the university’s commitment to having 20 percent of the energy used on OU’s Athens campus be renewable by the year 2020.
He expects OU will be using natural gas for the foreseeable future, however, until there is “an alternative that presents itself,” as long as the university commits to abstaining from coal.
To meet the extra demands for gas, OU is working with Columbia Gas to construct a medium-pressure natural gas pipeline, which has attracted criticism from protesters, including members of Ohio University Climate Action Now. OUCAN is a coalition of students, faculty and staff concerned with the sustainable energy policies of the university.
In a previous Post report, Lalley said the use of the pipeline in the place of coal will result in a 34 percent reduction of OU’s carbon emission and the construction of the line has lowered capital costs by roughly $3 million.
Lalley said he estimates that if OU relies on using this pipeline over the next several years, the university will have to purchase 35 percent of its energy from renewable sources in order to meet its 2020 goals.
The university has also discussed the possibility of a joint venture with the Southeast Ohio Public Energy Council on a 3-megawatt, 10-acre solar farm in Albany County as a possible energy source to assist in meeting OU’s 2020 sustainable energy goals.
The university received criticism over the handling of its transition into a new energy policy, such as OUCAN’s demand to cease construction of the gas pipeline until questions of its safety are addressed.
Despite this, Lalley said he looks forward to the public’s participation and a collaborative effort on discussions about the university’s energy policy.
“There may be disagreements on how we get there, but we are working toward a common goal,” Lalley said. “I want us to meet our commitments, if not exceed them.”
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