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.
