Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 65.89
Liaison Julie Newman
Submission Date Oct. 23, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OP-6: Clean and Renewable Energy

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.25 / 4.00 MIT Office of Sustainability
Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Total energy consumption (all sources, excluding transportation fuels), performance year :
2,873,742.69 MMBtu

Option 1 

Total clean and renewable electricity generated on site during the performance year and for which the institution retains or has retired the associated environmental attributes:
264.69 MMBtu

None
A brief description of on-site renewable electricity generating devices :
There are five rooftop solar photovoltaic systems. Together, these systems are designed to produce an estimated 80,000 kWh of clean energy annually. PV installations are found on the roofs of the Stratton Student Center, the Alumni Pool Building, Hayden Library, the MIT Museum, and the Sloan School of Business. MIT retains all RECs on these systems.

Option 2 

Non-electric renewable energy generated on-site, performance year:
0 MMBtu

None
A brief description of on-site renewable non-electric energy devices:
NA

Option 3 

Total clean and renewable electricity generated by off-site projects that the institution catalyzed and for which the institution retains or has retired the associated environmental attributes, performance year:
177,007.74 MMBtu

None
A brief description of off-site, institution-catalyzed, renewable electricity generating devices:
In the fall of 2016, MIT advanced its climate change mitigation efforts by joining with two local partners (Boston Medical Center and Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation) in a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Dominion Resources, a Virginia-based utility. The PPA enabled the construction of Summit Farms—a roughly 650-acre, 60-megawatt solar farm that otherwise would not have been built. This is the largest aggregated renewable-energy purchase by such an alliance of organizations in the U.S. Summit Farms, an array of 255,000 solar panels occupying an area in North Carolina four times the size of MIT’s campus, is projected to generate 146 gigawatt-hours of emissions-free power per year, resulting in the abatement of 119,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is the equivalent of removing almost 25,250 cars from the road.

Option 4 

Total third-party certified RECs, GOs and/or similar renewable energy products (including renewable electricity purchased through a utility-provided certified green power option) purchased during the performance year:
0 MMBtu

A brief description of the RECs, GOs and/or similar renewable energy products, including contract timeframes:
NA

Optional Fields

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

 

Sierra magazine requests the following information from U.S. institutions that wish to share data with that organization:

Electricity use, by source (percentage of total, 0-100):
Percentage of total electricity use (0-100)
Biomass 1
Coal 2
Geothermal 0
Hydro 2
Natural gas 68
Nuclear 10
Solar photovoltaic 1
Wind 4
Other (please specify and explain below) 13

A brief description of other sources of electricity not specified above:
Based on Eversource's description of the composition of sources of electricity generation, those categories that are not listed in the above entries include imported power, municipal trash, oil, other renewables including landfill gas and ocean thermal.

Energy used for heating buildings, by source::
Percentage of total energy used to heat buildings (0-100)
Biomass 0
Coal 0
Electricity 0
Fuel oil 1
Geothermal 0
Natural gas 99
Other (please specify and explain below) ---

A brief description of other sources of building heating not specified above:
---

Percentage of total energy consumption from clean and renewable sources:
6.17

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The composition of sources of building heating is an estimate provided by the Plant Engineer of MIT's Central Utilities Plant.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.