The University of Maryland ranked No. 12 in a national list of colleges that are the greatest users of renewable energy, 10 spots higher than it placed last year.
Sally DeLeon, the sustainability office’s project manager, said she was excited about this university’s ranking on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Top 30 College & University list, especially because the campus is pushing to use more renewable energy sources in the future.
“We use a lot more power than the smaller schools in the nation,” DeLeon said. “I’m a little surprised that we were as high as we were, but surprised in a good way.”
DeLeon attributed some of the university’s improvements to its use of almost 25 percent renewable electricity. Last academic year, the university retired a number of Renewable Energy Certificates, which contributed to the jump in rankings, said Mary-Ann Ibeziako, director of Facilities Management’s engineering and energy department.
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“When you buy electricity from anywhere, you’re paying for the commodity of electricity, but we can’t determine if that electricity came from a wind farm or from fossil fuels,” DeLeon said. “If you want to claim you’re using renewable power, you have to retire it to make sure we claim and report and say that we are using all of that energy. If you don’t retire it, and report that you’re using renewable energy and reported those RECs, then that’s not correct practices.”
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In addition to purchasing sustainable energy, this university also has several on-site solar panel projects that produce some electricity and hot water, DeLeon said. Some of the electricity-generating panels are located on Cole Field House and the Severn Building, which has a flat roof “uniquely suited for solar,” she said. There are also some solar thermal panels on North Campus Dining Hall that produce hot water.
This university aims to reduce its carbon emissions by 50 percent from the 2005 level by 2020, DeLeon said. So far, this university has reduced its emissions by 22 percent.
Students, faculty and staff can contribute to this goal by reducing their energy use, DeLeon said. “Making sure they turn the lights off, make sure you don’t leave your computer on when you’re not using it — those kinds of things.”
Maya Spaur, the director of the Student Government Association’s sustainability committee, also said students play an important role in reducing the school’s carbon footprint.
“I’ve seen so many people who are passionate about sustainability at our campus, and we are a research campus with a lot of innovative ideas,” said the junior environmental science and technology and government and politics major. “I’m really proud that we’re in the top 12.”
However, Spaur also said the university has a significant “need for improvement.”
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“We’re investing a lot of money in dirty energy sources like coal and natural gas, so we may have clean power, but we have dirty money,” Spaur said.
Junior Samantha Bingaman, the chairwoman of the University Sustainability Council’s funding review subcommittee, agreed with Spaur and said the university needs to “explore the divestment of fossil fuels.”
“If we want to be more green then we need to start exploring the pros and cons of divestment,” the environmental science and policy major said. “It’s important for college campuses because we have very big sustainability and energy issues that a lot of students are going to deal with as they grow up.”
