For the most part, the College has residential and small commercial scale energy systems and buildings, giving us flexibility and opportunity to pilot different approaches to energy use and performance with different applications. Unity College Energy by the Numbers By Jesse Pyles, Sustainability Coordinator Call it “Yankee thrift,” or “frugal sustainability,” or just “good sense,” but the Unity College community is, for the most part, a pretty energy conscious bunch. That is the finding from the energy assessment completed last spring by campus sustainability fellow, Dr. Anne Stephenson. Stephenson’s grant-funded placement at Unity for over a year was a result of our involvement with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Accelerating Campus Climate Change Initiatives program. Her report suggests that there is no silver bullet solution to significantly reducing campus building energy use. Instead, it documents 180 energy conservation measures that taken together could save the school about 25 percent of our
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current annual energy costs. You can find the full results of the energy assessment online at the Sustainability Monitor sustainabilitymonitor.wordpress.com/energy-plan/. Stephenson’s energy plan has also given us a detailed look at building energy use that will be central to facilities and sustainability planning well into the future. While we have tracked campus energy use in the aggregate for many years, until now we have been unable to adequately track building-specific data. The graph below shows the energy use intensity of our campus buildings. It documents oil, propane, and electricity use expressed in British thermal units (their common energy output) per square foot.
heating, cooking, and electricity. We have a record of making the best energy choices we can, given our financial resources and consideration of competing priorities. Our energy story includes some public efforts. For more than a decade, Unity has purchased renewable energy credits (RECs) to support renewable energy production in Maine and elsewhere. Unity is steward of the Jimmy Carter White House solar panels which heated water in the cafeteria for 12 years. We’ve installed demonstration, smallscale wind and solar photovoltaic systems on campus. And in 2008 we partnered with Bensonwood Homes to build the country’s first LEED Platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is a building certification process developed by the U.S. Green Building Council), net-zero energy president’s home on a college campus – the Unity House. The College’s emphasis on energy efficiency in recent construction has been less public. Great attention has been paid to insulation and energy systems in the Maplewood residence hall and the additions to the Allison M. Hall Welcome Center and Cianchette residence hall. Energy efficiency has been a central concern of builder Joe Bellerose ’77 on new constructions and other campus renovations in recent years. These efforts have contributed to relatively stable overall campus energy use despite the addition of built space.
Points of Entry As a small campus with a diverse building stock, Unity presents multiple points of entry for energy innovation. We don’t have a single heating system that would require a tremendous investment to upgrade or replace. For the most part, the College has residential and small commercial scale energy systems and buildings, giving us flexibility and opportunity to pilot different approaches to energy use and performance with different applications. With a small amount of grant funding, the College replaced the fuel oil heating system in our library with a wood pellet system (see page 24). More blown-in cellulose insulation was added last summer in Constable Hall – an 1800’s farmhouse typical of many homes in Maine. Maplewood utilizes solar tubes, drawing sunlight into the interior of the building and reducing the need for electric lighting. Annually, the Unity House