Thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Energy, three public universities in Mississippi will be sharing funding to support energy efficient facility improvements in order to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020.
An announcement came Wednesday at three succeeding press conferences in Oxford, Starkville and Columbus.
In addition to grant funding, the Tennessee Valley Authority will commit $150,000 to each of the three universities – Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women and the University of Mississippi – over three years.
Part of the Department of Energy’s $7.9 million investment to reduce energy costs across 13 states, Mississippi’s $725,000 State Energy Program grant was the largest amount awarded to any state in the Advancing Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings category according to Karen Bishop, director of the Mississippi Development Authority’s Energy and Natural Resources Division.
Through the project, an energy management strategy will be developed for each of the universities, and Bishop said, ideally, successful retrofits would be combined and adopted throughout the state.
“This award will create a path … to implement energy management strategies in the state in a creation of a retrofit strategy for all state universities,” she said. “To maximize the award, we plan to create a strategy that can be replicated throughout state government and in local units of government as well.”
Energy efficiency projects undertaken by the universities will qualify for TVA’s commercial incentive program, said TVA’s Mississippi Energy Efficiency Manager David Sparks, which provides 10 cents per kilowatt hour saved by improvements.
The TVA can pay up to 70 percent of the capital costs of these projects.
“This is the latest chapter in a historic relationship the TVA values dearly,” Sparks said. “We are proud to support the state of Mississippi.”
Mississippi Development Authority’s Energy and Natural Resources division in conjunction with the Bureau of Building, Grounds and Real Property Management and the Institutions of Higher Learning applied for the competitive grant.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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