CAP Progress

 

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Energy Supply: 

  • We are making great progress with new solar projects but there is a lot of uncertainty with the grid that will be a challenge in this work. There are a lot of unknowns but we are making good progress. Great advances with solar - we're on our way to our 6MW 2033 goal. The next 4 megawatts for onsite solar just went out to bid for design.
  • The University has some funding budgeted for converting steam heat to low or medium-temperature water distribution systems.

 

 

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Energy Demand: 

  • The University's Energy Management team is making progress with energy efficiency including identifying funding and creating working groups and policies as well as drafting an energy efficiency best practices list. A student project is underway looking at energy conservation campaigns.
  • Policy has been created that requires all new buildings to be net zero. A working group has been created to update the University's building standards with best practices for energy efficient design. Early progress has been made on determining financing for energy efficiency projects. 
  • A working group has been created to start looking at buildings to potentially decommission.

 

 

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Commuting: 

  • Safety improvements are coming for bikers/walkers! We have implemented surveys to help determine where opportunities are for commuting and have improvements to street infrastructure in the works to encourage walking and biking on/to/from campus. 
  • Upcoming: an RFP to look into microtransit services, potentially with on demand scheduling and flexible routes
  • We are working on creating a fee structure for EV charging on campus and will be working with vendors on future charging.

 

 

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University Fleet: 

  • We are working on switching our fleet over to EVs including efforts to secure funding, incentivize adoption, and install charging stations.
  • Success in year 1 will look like having the Food Ops charging bank implemented & continuing learning and bringing in the correct people to the conversation. 

 

 

 

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U Sponsored Travel

  • Progress is being made around editing policy to incentivize lower carbon options when traveling on University business. 
  • We are currently creating a working group and looking to start purchasing to track travel related emissions using a new dashboard. We are looking to add language around decarbonization/emissions tracking for ground transportation into existing procurement policies. Some education around travel best practices may be helpful to start shifting behavior.