Three universities receive additional help from TVA
David Sparks, TVA Mississippi Energy Efficiency Manager; The University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones; Karen Bishop, Mississippi Development Authority Energy Director. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Communications
OXFORD, Miss. – In an effort to support energy efficiency improvements at the state’s public universities, Mississippi was awarded $725,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy. The grant will be used to help create an energy efficiency retrofit strategy for the state’s eight Institutions of Higher Learning, with the goal of reducing energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020.
The Mississippi Development Authority’s energy and natural resources division, in partnership with the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration’s Bureau of Buildings, Grounds and Real Property Management, and IHL, applied for the State Energy Program’s competitive grant award on behalf of the state of Mississippi.
Additionally, the Tennessee Valley Authority has committed $150,000 over three years to each of the three Mississippi public universities within its service area – the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and Mississippi University for Women – to further support the project.
At a press conference Wednesday, Chancellor Dan Jones said he was grateful for the partnership between the agencies.
“We are always glad when people give us incentives to do the right things for the right reasons, and this will enable us to be good stewards of both financial resources and of the environment,” Jones said. “We are excited as a public university to take responsibility to be more energy efficient and make progress in our goal of supporting the concept of sustainability, not just next year but the next century and the century after that.”
Mississippi is home to the first TVA municipal power supplier and the nation’s first electric power cooperative, and the state has always been a vital region of the TVA service area, said David Sparks, TVA’s Mississippi energy efficiency manager, who was also at the press conference.
“We are proud to support the State of Mississippi with its remarkable energy efficiency efforts, which will not only help save on energy costs, but will also play an important role in helping TVA continue to deliver reliable, low-cost, cleaner energy,” Sparks said. “We are also proud of the energy efficiency success and leadership the local power companies have provided here in Mississippi. Northeast Power and the city of Oxford have partnered with the University of Mississippi to participate in TVA’s Green Campus program and the City of Oxford piloted our green school program.”
The Department of Energy grant will help support public universities’ ongoing efforts to use energy resources more efficiently and enable more resources to be directed to the classrooms.
The Department of Energy is investing a total of $7.9 million to assist 13 states in developing cost-saving, whole-building retrofit programs across a broad range of their 2012 state energy competitive grant program. Mississippi’s grant was the largest award received by the 13 states.
“I am pleased Mississippi has been awarded these funds to help our IHL facilities become more energy efficient. Reducing energy spending in our state’s public buildings is important to me, as it will save significant tax dollars while helping us move toward being a more energy efficient state,” Gov. Phil Bryant said in a written statement. “I am proud of the interagency collaboration among MDA, DFA and IHL to secure this award and am grateful to TVA for being so supportive of this initiative and committing funds to further bolster the project.”
Program guidelines regarding the project are still being developed, and they will be made available at www.mississippi.org once they are complete. For more information, contact Karen Bishop, MDA energy and natural resources division director, at 601-359-2517 or kbishop@mississippi.org.
To learn more about TVA energy efficiency programs, visit www.energyright.com.