The University of Virginia was not the first campus in the Commonwealth to go solar, betting on the sun for much of the power it needs.
UVA had already committed to buy the power produced by a 160-acre site in Hollyfield, Virginia and this month it added another 120 acres in Puller, northeast of Richmond.
“Those two sites together would provide approximately 20% of the university electric consumption.”
That’s Don Sundgren, Chief Facilities Officer. He says UVA is also going green with rooftop solar.
“We have rooftop right now on three buildings, and we’re going to put it on a fourth building, and we just completed a study of roofs to see what else we can put it on.”
It is, he says, a bit of a gamble:
“We pay Dominion for the electricity coming from those fields and then it is sold, so if it is sold for a higher cost than we pay, we make money. If it’s sold for a lesser cost than we pay, we lose money. We did an analysis over the 25 year period and it looks like it’ll be about a break-even for the university or somewhat profitable for the university. It all depends on what electric rates are going to do in the future, and it’s pretty tough to predict what’s going to happen to rates over a 25-year period.”
UVA may form a consortium with other schools in the Commonwealth to add more renewable energy – helping it to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% below 2009 levels by 2025.
