The electricity streaming through the EMU isn’t different, but Wednesday the source of that power changed. The building became fully powered by wind energy on Earth Day after University officials signed a contract with the Eugene Water and Electric Board to purchase the power, Campus Operations Director George Hecht said.
Students will pay a maximum of 60 cents per term in additional energy fees to establish a fund to finance the wind power and other sustainability projects on campus, University Sustainability Coordinator Steve Mital said.
Students voted 1,150-277 on Ballot Measure 21 in the ASUO primary election two weeks ago, showing support for paying up to $2 to fund sustainability projects.
Hecht said provost John Moseley authorized the purchase using current energy fee money after the ballot measure demonstrated students’ support. But the fee increases must still be approved by the State Board of Higher Education before next year’s fee can be raised. Moseley could not be reached for comment.
Hecht said that the purchase is a “tradeoff,” saying Moseley wanted to ensure students’ support for paying higher fees because some students already struggle to pay for school.
About $11,000 of fee money will be needed to provide the wind power, although around $40,000 might be raised by the fee increase, Hecht said. He said EWEB provided the best rates from several potential suppliers and the University has a history of collaborating with the company.
He added that the president and chancellor’s houses have been powered by wind energy for about two or three years.
Although “electrons are indistinguishable from each other … we have the right to claim that we have that power because we’re buying it,” Hecht said, referring to the renewable energy EWEB’s turbine facility in Wyoming provides.
Details of how the fund will be spent are still unclear, Mital said. But he said a panel of students and administrators will likely choose projects to finance.
“I think it’s fantastic,” he said. “The University of Oregon is an environmental leader nationwide and so it’s fantastic that on Earth Day we were able to make a bold new initiative,” he said.
Student Megan Edgar, who participated in a study the Environmental Studies Program conducted last year on the University’s energy use, said the project “sort of all fell together” after EMU Board members Yoko Silk and Stephanie Erickson used their knowledge of the ASUO to
implement it.
She said the wind energy partially symbolizes students’ commitment to the environment, but added that the University’s “pretty substantial purchase” of the power will help increase overall demand for wind power.
Silk said she was excited about the results of the year-long process.
“It feels really good to come to some sort of completion with that,” she said.
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