POUGHKEEPSIE – Vassar
College in the Town of Poughkeepsie has announced two renewable energy
initiatives – a solar project with BQ Energy and an agreement with
the hydro-power company Gravity Renewables.
The two megawatt solar farm will be in the Town of Northeast at a decommissioned
landfill that hasn’t been in operation since the early 1990s. The
solar array, when built, will provide the college with 11 percent of its
energy needs and allow Vassar to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions over
the 20-year period of the operating agreement. BQ Energy, based in Poughkeepsie,
specializes in brownfield project development.
The hydro-power is provided through an agreement with Gravity Renewables
that will give the college access to clean power generated at the Groveville
Hydro Facility, owned and operated by Enel Green Power North America,
which has 90 megawatts of renewable energy in New York and more than 2,000
MW of installed capacity in the US and Canada.
The Groveville facility produces 1.9 million kilowatt-hours of electricity
ear year, enough to provide some 10 percent of the college’s annual
energy use.
