A photo voltaic array is on show close to the Southern Oregon College Farm in Ashland. The varsity introduced this week that it bought $2 million from Congress for extra photo voltaic installations. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune]
Southern Oregon College thanked Congress on Tuesday for securing $2 million to pay for added photo voltaic arrays on campus.
The funds — made potential by a $1.7 billion federal appropriations invoice that cleared Congress final week — will go towards SOU’s final aim of turning into the nation’s first energy-independent college.
“This allocation will permit us to take a big step towards our aim, and it reinforces our establishment’s dedication to environmental stewardship, monetary prudence and accountable management,” stated SOU President Rick Bailey in a information launch. “We sit up for beginning our subsequent part of photo voltaic installations to additional cut back our dependence on {the electrical} grid and the day-to-day prices of operating a twenty first century campus.”
The brand new federal allocation is called Forging Oregon’s Renewable Vitality Supply Transition Via Reimagining Schooling + Vitality (FOREST TREE) Mission, in keeping with a launch from US senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.
The undertaking will assist pay for added photo voltaic arrays on SOU’s parking tons and rooftops, SOU stated, however not a lot info was offered about how the $2 million can be used.
Joe Mosley, director of group and media relations, informed the Mail Tribune on Tuesday that it was unclear which buildings or which parking tons would host the brand new arrays, because the college must undergo a request for proposals course of to discover a firm to do the upgrades. .
“That is a part of the entire undertaking, the $2 million,” Mosley stated. “That is the query – which firm is the perfect? It is not simply based mostly on worth, however it will probably do what we hope to attain the perfect.
Mosley stated he is unsure when the RFP will exit, however the course of will probably be “fast-tracked” over a number of months.
Moreover, the SOU spokesperson was not sure when the brand new photo voltaic arrays could be totally put in.
“It is unattainable to invest on that till we see some responses to the RFP,” Mosley stated. “I consider there can be an occasion in 2023, however I can not say for certain.”
Mosley stated the college envisions parking constructions coated in photo voltaic panels.
“Mainly, this undertaking is the place we begin placing some photo voltaic arrays within the parking tons. That is going to be one in every of our massive focuses going ahead,” he stated.
SOU is celebrating a $2 million rake in federal funds simply two months after the Oregon Division of Vitality gave the college $1 million to assist pay for photo voltaic arrays at The Hawk Eating Commons and Lithia Motors Pavilion/Scholar Recreation Middle complicated.
In September 2021, the college introduced photo voltaic arrays on the student-run farm, situated off Walker Avenue.
SOU’s first photo voltaic array — a 6-kilowatt undertaking with 24 photo voltaic panels — was put in on the roof of Hannon Library in 2000.
SOU presently has 9 photo voltaic arrays on campus, in addition to an array on the RCC/SOU Increased Schooling Middle in Medford, and a pole-mounted array put in final yr by a nonprofit on land leased from in SOU.
“I feel sustainability and environmental consciousness have been a part of SOU’s total values for years, and it is being expressed much more immediately,” Mosley stated.
Name reporter Kevin Opsahl at 541-776-4476 or [email protected]. Comply with him on Twitter @KevJourno.
