Mississippi State University, home to the largest undergraduate student body in the state, made strides earlier this month towards its goal of being carbon neutral by 2042.
The school announced on Feb. 6 that it was installing on its campus 3,420 solar panels — which it expects to start generating power by this summer — claiming it as the largest such project among Southeastern Conference colleges. The project also includes upgrading 54,000 lighting fixtures with LED bulbs. Officials say the additions are a major step in reaching the 2042 goal, which the school set for itself in its 2012 climate action plan.
“We think renewable energy is one of our primary methods of reducing our footprint,” Saunders Ramsey, executive director of MSU’s Campus Services, told Mississippi Today. “We’re doing all we can to be good stewards.”
MSU isn’t the only Mississippi college with carbon neutrality or sustainability targets: The University of Southern Mississippi’s climate action plan aims for the school to be carbon neutral by 2050. The University of Mississippi has taken similar measures, including tracking its greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, Alcorn State University launched a sustainability program looking to expand recycling and use more efficient vehicles.
Ramsey said the recent improvements cost the school $7.6 million altogether — about $5 million for the LED lights and $2.5 million for the solar panels — minus a $265,000 rebate it received from Tennessee Valley Authority. But the added efficiencies in energy usage will eventually save money for the university.
“We’re thinking within seven or eight years that you’re starting to look at a profitable venture,” Ramsey said. “The savings that you’ve realized from an alternative energy source and a reduction of energy usage actually becomes a net positive and you’ve paid your debt off.”
He estimated that the school will save $700,000 a year with LED light fixtures and $200,000 a year with the new solar array, which are being installed and maintained by consultant Entegrity.
Les Potts, MSU’s interim vice president for Finance and Administration and CFO, said the college’s other energy efficiency projects over the years have included a 500-car garage powered entirely by solar panels, as well as a thermal storage system that makes ice at night, when energy demand is low, and then melts it during the day for cooling needs.
“The largest impact obviously is when you add this first solar array,” Potts described about the new project. “If you think about the energy costs of buildings, (the solar panels will power) only about 2%, but it is significant with an institution our size.”
MSU saw it’s largest ever freshman class the beginning of this academic year with 3,700 new students. The school’s total enrollment of 22,657 is 12% higher than it was a decade ago.
When asked if the university is on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2042, Potts said he’s cautiously optimistic.
“I think that it is plausible and realistic, but not without challenges,” he said. “I think the biggest obstacle is, when you’re looking at the last decade and a half, we’ve grown here over two million square feet in heated and cooled building space, and that is necessary for the institution to accommodate growth.”
He added that the value of adding the new solar array goes beyond the environmental and financial benefits for the school.
“One of the positives of the solar array to me is the opportunities for our students to research and learn about: how do these things operate, what is the land like that they’re on, what other uses are there, what are landowners needing from us, as our outreach is advising landowners across the state of Mississippi, ” Potts said. “How can we help them? I think it just helps us to be doing it ourselves, and it’s an ancillary benefit to the carbon reduction and responsible stewardship.”
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