University of Tennessee at Knoxville
IN-24: Innovation A

The University of Tennessee has restructured their Renewable Energy Credits purchasing process in order to become the nation's #1 green power purchaser in academia. The U.S. EPA's Green Power Partnership announced in October 2016 that the University of Tennessee leads the College and University Challenge. (https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/green-power-partnership-top-30-college-university) To achieve this, the purchasing process of the Student Environmental Initiatives Fee was reevaluated and national, regional and local RECs rates were considered. With the change in the market since 2005, REC rates greatly decreased and thus more RECs could be purchased at a lower price. The 2016 fiscal year ended with 245,666 megawatt hours of RECs purchased, offsetting 150,038.4 MT eCO2. This purchase fully offset the university’s greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity and brought the 2016 fiscal year net emissions down to 131,215.6 MT eCO2. The university is pleased that roughly 70% of emissions produced via on campus cogeneration, other stationary sources, fleet transportation, refrigerants and chemicals, fertilizers, and purchased electricity were offset by green power. This rate restructuring process will save the Student Environmental Initiatives Facilities Fee approximately $96,000 per FY (based on traditional spending amount of $250,000/FY over the past five years) and has brought UT from #10 in the nation for green power use to #1 in the nation. The RECs purchased are Green-e Energy Certified with a product content of 99.1% wind, 9% solar sourced from Illinois and Tennessee. 50,000 kWh of RECs were bought as part of TVA's Green Power Switch® Southeastern RECs pilot, and the remainder were bought from Renewable Choice Energy. This successful REC purchasing restructuring has paved the way for a future Power Purchase Agreement.