ELECTRIC EFFICIENCY

April 25

By HOLLY ZADA, correspondent

At Unity College, phrases such as "climate change," "sustainability" and "carbon footprint" are common.

Unity College students, staff and faculty alike know that buildings -- both homes and businesses -- are major consumers of fossil fuel energy.

Which is why the college now has a Sustainability Fellow.

She is Anne Stephenson and is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, accredited, a Building Performance Institute analyst and a Home Energy Rating System rater, and holds a doctorate from the University of Chicago.

Anne Stephenson

She is charged with crunching numbers that, from the outside, may not look like climate change action.

Stephenson said she analyzes energy use patterns in campus buildings through software modeling, infrared cameras and air-leakage analysis.

Currently, she's wading through electric bills and helping Unity College decide what efficiency projects to do first.

"A lot of my work is like being a financial auditor," Stephenson said. "The goal is to get a handle on current energy consumption on campus and to really unpack what each building is doing."

This way, Stephenson said, she can focus attention on efficiencies and inefficiencies and make recommendations about how to reduce energy consumption both on campus and in the community.

Stephenson's work will ultimately help conserve fossil-fuel energy and determine feasible renewable energy retrofits.

Unity College is one of 12 schools nationwide selected to participate in the Rocky Mountain Institute's Accelerating Campus Climate Change Initiative. This grant made Stephenson's fellowship possible.

Douglas Fox, Unity College professor and director of Unity's Center for Sustainability and Global Change, said one reason Unity was selected for the fellowship is its multidimensional approach to education that connects academia with outreach and hands-on learning.

Professor Doug Fox

Fox said Unity students learn from such local partners in the sustainable movement as the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Unity Barn Raisers and Freedom Farm, and participate in community-based climate change projects such as the town's Neighbor Warming Neighbor weatherization project.

In an e-mail, Fox noted that the college's Center for Sustainability and Global Change has one of the state's two wind assessment services, which helps communities and farms rate wind power potential.

Further, said Fox, the "center frequently provides tours of Unity House, a net-zero carbon emission home that serves as the president's house, and this spring the center sponsored a sustainability training institute."

According to Fox, it is this collaborative work between the town of Unity and the college that made possible another grant, the Town of Unity Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant. Block grant authors Fox, Tess Fairbanks Woods and Ron Desrosiers noted that funds will be used to develop a community energy efficiency and conservation strategy, complete residential and commercial building energy audits, and provide seed funds to complete energy efficiency retrofits on government owned buildings.