| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 68.72 |
| Liaison | Greg Maginn |
| Submission Date | Jan. 18, 2019 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
The Ohio State University
IN-24: Innovation A
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
1.00 / 1.00 |
Kate
Bartter Associate Director Office of Energy and the Environment |
Name or title of the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome:
A brief description of the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome that outlines how credit criteria are met and any positive measurable outcomes associated with the innovation:
In April 2017, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees approved an historic, 50-year partnership agreement valued at nearly $1.2 billion with Ohio State Energy Partners, a private sector entity, to manage the university’s energy delivery systems more efficiently. This creative financing innovation provides the university with up-front capital funding to execute sustainability programming at a much larger scale than previously possible, and establishes a relationship with an energy management expert that is experienced with reducing energy-use related emissions while maintaining user expectations.
This agreement includes a contractual requirement for Ohio State Energy Partners to improve the university’s Columbus campus building energy efficiency by 25% within the first 10 years of the agreement.
This partnership also includes significant academic engagement opportunities, including new endowments for scholarships for undergraduate, graduate and professional students, new faculty hires, sustainability curriculum development and the establishment of an Energy Innovation Center to enable creative academic energy research to reach commercial implementation scale.
The partnership also provides a $15 million endowment to fund on-campus sustainability projects that will help the university achieve its established sustainability goals.
While public-private concessionaire agreements are fairly common, the massive scale and specific tailoring to sustainability outcomes make this financing innovation unique in the field. As noted above, it provides immediate endowed funding for on-campus sustainability projects, sustainability curriculum development for student classroom learning, paid internships for student experiential learning, a new center on campus for faculty and students to bring energy research innovations to life for commercial adoption, and will drive investment in making the university’s building energy use more efficient. Regarding the latter, while the university would previously conduct energy efficiency upgrades to a couple buildings on an annual basis, through the resources provided in this agreement, that annual pace will now stretch to address over fifty buildings simultaneously in pursuit of the contractual obligation for 25% efficiency improvement.
Which of the following impact areas does the innovation most closely relate to? (select up to three):
Buildings
Energy
A letter of affirmation from an individual with relevant expertise or a press release or publication featuring the innovation :
The website URL where information about the innovation is available :
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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.