COLBY, UNITY

April 28, 2010

Colleges Lauded for Campus 'Greenery'

By Scott Monroe
Staff Writer

Two local colleges are seeing "green" as they tout recent nationwide recognition they've received for renewable energy practices.

Colby College in Waterville, for the third year, has been named by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a "green power champion" within its athletic conference.

In addition, Unity College was recently among colleges chosen to be included in a new national guide to "green" colleges.

  
Unity College Faculty and Staff

For Colby, the EPA ranking highlights a contract with the firm Constellation Energy, which provides all of the college's energy -- half from hydro and half from wind power. Colby has contracted with the company since 2003 to buy only renewable energy sources and is currently under a contract until 2011, according to Patricia Murphy, the college's physical plant director.

The EPA ranking considers the total amount of "green," or renewable energy, power purchased and Colby is listed as the highest in its conference, using 103 percent green electricity. The college purchases energy certificates to bring its total green power purchase to more than 100 percent of its campus electricity load.

Under the contract with Constellation, Colby is charged an average premium charge of about $50,000 annually. Colby is listed by the EPA as purchasing 15.9 million kilowatt-hours a year.

All told, Colby's total electricity bill is about $1.9 million per year, or between $150,000 and $200,000 per month, according to Murphy.

"Our consumption of electricity has gone down, mostly because we're thinking of greening efforts," Murphy said. "We're down so far this year."

The EPA ranks Colby College as having purchased more than 15.9 million kilowatt-hours of green power in the 2009-10 academic year.

That's the most out of the 51.9 million of kilowatt-hours bought by others in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, according to the EPA. The next highest green-power buyers were Connecticut College at 15 million kilowatt-hours, followed by Bowdoin College (12.5 million), Hamilton College (6.2 million) and Middlebury College (2.2 million).

Colby also meets about 10 percent of its electricity needs through co-generation, Murphy said, which includes an on-campus turbine that generates steam-plant exhaust. The college also buys "Green-E" certified renewable energy credits for certain projects.

Unity College, meanwhile, is included in a new nationwide guide by The Princeton Review and the U.S. Green Building Council. The release of "The Princeton Review's Guide to 286 Green Colleges" marks the first free comprehensive guidebook devoted to colleges that demonstrate "an above-average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives," according to Unity College.

The guide is based on a survey of hundreds of colleges with considerations given to solar panel study rooms, portions of colleges' budgets spent on local and organic food, nationwide green building standards known as LEED-certified, recycling and conservation programs and more.

"Sustainability is a core value of all that we do at Unity College," said Alisa Johnson, dean for enrollment management. "It infuses our curriculum and our environmental mission is strengthened because all students, faculty and staff share a common connection to a life in service to the environment."