Wind Energy Funding Upped

University President Lawrence H. Summers announced a set of initiatives on Wednesday that will position Harvard as the foremost buyer of renewable energy among American universities.

The new program will set aside $100,000 yearly toward the purchase and development of renewable energy at Harvard, a cause that has garnered support from students and staff across the university in recent months.

This figure is nearly double what would have been raised by the opt-out termbill fee on wind energy that students approved overwhelmingly in a vote last December. The proposal was ultimately rejected by Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71.

Summers also announced the formation of an advisory group of students and staff that will help decide how the $100,000 is spent, as well as a $3 million loan fund to help pay for energy-efficient features in new buildings.

The new proposals stem in part from the growing momentum of a University-wide renewable energy movement, which culminated in last December’s successful College-wide referendum.

Proponents of renewable energy have also convinced administrators at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health to buy all or half of their electricity, respectively, from renewable sources.

Leith Sharp, who directs the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, an administrative organization responsible for environmental issues across the University, said the renewable energy referendum—supported by 82 percent of voting undergraduates—was key in convincing Summers to go ahead with the plan.

“It certainly illustrated the momentum and the magnitude of student interest in renewable energy in a way that hadn’t been done to date,” she said. “I believe the president heard that and I think that was a very significant reason why this was approved.”

While Gross has balked at implementing the $10 opt-out fee, citing a hesitation to adding more optional charges to the termbill, the referendum’s supporters are asking the Dean to set aside money for the College’s own purchase of renewable energy.

Stressing that the new funds will be dispersed across the entire University—not just the College, as the termbill fee would have done—one of the referendum’s key supporters said that Summers’ announcement should not sway Gross’ decision.

“We didn’t even expect Summers to do this—that’s great that he did, but we’re kind of thinking about these talks with Gross as a completely separate thing,” said Alexander L. Pasternack ’05, who helped organize Harvard Students for Clean Energy, one of the groups responsible for putting the wind power referendum on the ballot.

While Pasternack, who is also a Crimson editor, declined to specify how much his group has asked the College to provide, he said it was significantly less than the $100,000 the University president has allocated.

According to Sharp, about half of that money will initially go toward research and development of clean energy sources, including an examination of Harvard’s land to determine if the University could eventually construct its own wind turbines.

At present, Harvard’s renewable energy purchases come in the form of certificates, which represent the output of wind farms elsewhere in the Northeast.

Sharp said that the money Summers allocated is “exactly what we’d hoped for” in order to reach HGCI’s two immediate goals: to fund research into clean energy sources closer to Cambridge, and to move Harvard ahead of the University of Pennsylvania as the top renewable energy purchaser among U.S. universities.

—Staff writer Anton S. Troianovski can be reached at atroian@fas.harvard.edu.