Green Energy

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have identified a suite of technologies to help California to become carbon-neutral—and ultimately carbon-negative —by 2045. To achieve the goal of carbon-neutrality, California will likely have to remove on the order of 125 million tons per year of CO2 from the atmosphere.

In the report, “Getting to Neutral: Options for Negative Carbon Emissions in California,” funded by the Livermore Lab Foundation (LLF) with grant support from the ClimateWorks Foundation, LLNL focused on three specific pillars of negative emissions: natural and working lands; carbon capture from biomass conversion to fuels; and direct air capture.

The team identified a portfolio of approaches for achieving greater than 125 million metric tons per year of negative emissions for California by 2045 and evaluated the scope of state and private investment to best achieve the goal.

Of the three, the authors concluded that converting the state’s waste biomass (about 56 million bone dry tons per year) into fuels with simultaneous capture of the process CO₂ emissions holds the greatest potential for negative emissions in the State—some 84 million metric tons per year. More specifically, gasifying biomass to make hydrogen fuel and CO₂ has the largest promise for CO₂ removal at the lowest cost and aligns with the state’s goals on renewable hydrogen.

This study intentionally avoids any discussion of policies and does not include current incentives; it provides a range of options, tradeoffs and costs that can be used to inform future policies. The key finding of this report is that carbon neutrality is achievable.—“Getting to Neutral”

The study was conducted as part of LLNL’s energy programs work and the Laboratory’s Carbon Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to identify solutions to enable global-scale CO₂ removal from the atmosphere and hit global temperature targets.

The report assesses the advanced carbon reduction technologies now available, their costs, as well as the tradeoffs necessary to reach the state’s decarbonization goal. The report codifies a number of significant conclusions by researchers at eight institutions. It serves as a resource for policymakers, government, academia and industry.

California can achieve this level of negative emissions at modest cost, using resources and jobs within the State, and with technology that is already demonstrated or mature. This is our conclusion after a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind, quantitative analysis of natural carbon removal strategies, negative emissions technologies, and biomass and geologic resources in the State, using methods that are transparently detailed in this report. We also find that realizing this goal will require concerted efforts to implement underground carbon storage at scale, build new CO₂ pipelines, expand collection and processing of waste biomass, and accelerate learning on important technologies, like direct air capture.—“Getting to Neutral”

Background. California executive order B-55-18 mandates that the state achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and maintain net negative emissions thereafter. Carbon neutrality refers to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by balancing any remaining atmospheric emissions with removal of carbon dioxide from the air, or simply by eliminating carbon emissions altogether. It applies to everything that generates greenhouse gases.

Achieving this goal would complete a chain of other ambitious statewide targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The LLNL study finds that not only is carbon neutrality possible, but that California can be a global climate leader by demonstrating how to remove significant amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Without CO₂ removal, reaching our carbon neutrality goal will be slower, more difficult and costly. While there are no silver bullets, we have evaluated strategies that rely on many existing technologies and resources, creating a CO₂ removal blueprint that can be replicated.—LLNL chemist Sarah Baker, lead author of the report

Just a few years ago, a chorus of hee-haws would be expected to erupt whenever the topic turned to the hydrogen economy of the sparkling green future. Well, money talks. The US Department of Energy has been plowing research dollars into hydrogen and fuel cell technology, and the latest development is all about leveraging wind and solar energy to bring the cost of renewable hydrogen down, down, down.

Bringing The Cost Of Renewable Hydrogen Down

The primary source of hydrogen today is natural gas, and the market is huge. The US produces 10 million tons of hydrogen annually under the current scheme of things. New applications — including transportation and energy storage among others — could bump up demand even more in the coming years.

With that in mind, check out the Energy Department’s new $64 million round of funding for projects related to the H2@Scale initiative of the Fuel Cell Technologies Office.

The funding is devoted to a soup-to-nuts effort to reduce the cost of hydrogen all through the supply chain. It also involves shifting the hydrogen field out of its near-total dependence on natural gas.

“While much of the hydrogen used in the United States today comes from low‐cost natural gas, adding other production sources can make industries more resilient to potential price volatility,” explains FCTO.

Gas Stakeholders, Beware

That statement may sound somewhat mild, but it amounts to a stab in the heart of the US fossil gas industry.

Gas stakeholders are already reeling under threat from the building electrification movement along with signs that their grip on the power generation sector is loosening. The ground is beginning to shake under the market for fossil-sourced plastics and other chemicals as well.

With that in mind, the new round of funding puts a priority on slashing the cost of electrolyzers, the devices that deploy an electrical current to “split” hydrogen from water.

The use of water as a source doesn’t necessarily lead to renewable hydrogen. Electrolyzers are source neutral, so the electricity could come from fossil fuels or nuclear energy.

Now that the cost of renewable energy has fallen off a cliff, FCTO gives the edge to wind and solar over other fuels — but only if the cost of electrolyzers can also come down.

How Low Can Renewable Hydrogen Go?

The way FCTO sees it, electrolyzer manufacturers could learn a thing or two from fuel cell manufacturers about cutting costs.

The strategy for the new round of funding involves building economies of scale into the electrolyzer supply chain, and adopting some of the the high volume, high throughput techniques used for making fuel calls.

Integrating fuel cell technology, standardizing systems and components, and reducing the complexity of membrane-based electrolyzers can also contribute to the cost-cutting effort.

So, how low can hydrogen go? FCTO is not shy about waving its track record on that score. They take credit for supporting R&D programs that have already reduced the cost of electrolyzers by 80% since 2002.

There is still a long row to hoe. The electrolyzers of today are low-volume (less than 5-megawatt) devices that can cost more than $1000 per kilowatt.

In contrast, FCTO is envisioning a scenario in which the cost of large-scale electrolyzers drops down to the range of $400/kW or less, making it possible to achieve a target cost for hydrogen of less than $2.00 per kilogram.

Renewable Energy Hearts Renewable Hydrogen

That target cost of $2.00 per kilogram dovetails neatly with the renewable energy revolution, and FCTO makes a point of explaining that wind and solar are the engines driving low-cost, renewable hydrogen:

“A recent analysis using DOE’s H2A model16 shows that H2 production costs of <$2/kg can potentially be achieved at electricity prices of 3¢/kWh (which is becoming increasingly common with wind and solar installations), when the electrolyzer system capital cost is less than $400/kW.”

Now, combine the impact of low-cost wind and solar with manufacturing efficiencies and system improvements, and the renewable hydrogen picture comes into sharper focus (emphasis added):

“Manufacturing cost analysis supports the concept that these capital costs can be achieved by increasing manufacturing volumes. For example, one study, which assumes technological advances beyond current commercial electrolyzers, shows that increasing the annual production volume from 10 MW to 1,000 MW could potentially decrease PEM electrolyzer system costs down to ~$250/kW.“

In support of that effort, a $15 million chunk of the new round of funding will go to electrolyzer projects that involve improving fabrication techniques and reducing system complexity, with an eye toward cutting follow-on costs for service and maintenance.

The Wind, Solar, Hydrogen Question

So, why not simply use the electricity from wind and solar farms to charge batteries and do whatever?

That’s fine as far as it goes, but transmission lines and other bottlenecks are already stymieing growth in the wind and solar sectors. Renewable hydrogen provides additional opportunities to deploy energy storage and existing infrastructure — namely, roads and pipelines — to put more renewable energy in the hands of energy consumers.

“The overall vision of H2@Scale recognizes hydrogen’s versatility as a flexible energy carrier,” the offices explains. “H2@Scale enables—rather than competes with—energy pathways across many industrial sectors. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of domestic sources and used in numerous industrial and consumer applications.”

In another development along those lines, last fall several midwestern states launched a new consortium in support of hydrogen. That’s a significant move, considering that so far the regional collaborations have been clustered on the east and west coasts. CleanTechnica is reaching out to the new consortium for its insights on the renewable angle, so stay tuned.

If you read solar news, you know U.S. solar projects have reached whopping proportions. 

The trend goes beyond individual records: The sheer number of those giant projects is increasing as well. The tally of projects larger than 120 megawatts (AC) going into service in the U.S. will jump from 11 in 2019 to 32 in 2021, according to data from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. 

Sean Kiernan, senior vice president of development at 8minute Solar Energy, remembers when “large” meant more than 20 megawatts. The biggest projects now under development in the U.S. slide just under 700 megawatts (DC).

“Clearly, we’re seeing in the market that…larger projects, where possible, will have some pretty clear benefits,” said Kiernan.

Those benefits include economies of scale and higher production returns from development work. But the proliferation of huge projects has also sparked controversy in parts of the country. Conservation groups have warned that Gemini Solar, a partnership between Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and Arevia Power that is the largest project currently under development in the U.S., could harm desert wildlife in the area.

U.S. Projects Larger Than 120 Megawatts (AC)

Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables

The ability to scale projects up depends on the location. California and Texas, the two states with the most projects greater than 120 megawatts according to WoodMac, offer ample space and strong solar resource. In parts of the Northeast, achieving that scale is difficult, if not impossible.

“I’m impressed and amazed by some developers who have gone to some markets like PJM and have been able to do really large projects,” said Kiernan. “I know firsthand how incredibly difficult that would be.”

So will project sizes continue to grow, including after the federal Investment Tax Credit phases down? It remains to be seen. The “elusive 1.0-gigawatt (DC) project” may arrive within this decade, said Colin Smith, a senior solar analyst at WoodMac. 

Are economies of scale overrated?

At the same time, many in the industry point to quantity rather than size as a key indicator of success. 

“The reality is that…project[s] at 100 megawatts or higher all have the same economy of scale,” said Benoit Allehaut, managing director of the clean energy infrastructure group at investment firm Capital Dynamics, which claims to own seven of the 20 largest U.S. solar projects.

“Solar is very, very modular,” Allehaut said. “If we want to reach 50 percent and, down the line, 100 percent renewable energy, there will be a need for a very…large number of assets.”

Though developers size projects to meet demand and capture the advantageous economics, in the end, the size of the project may also be built for wow factor. Most states with renewable portfolio standards plan to meet them through a combination of distributed generation, large-scale projects and efficiency measures. 

“To me, bigger projects are ‘bragawatts,’” said WoodMac’s Smith. “The important factor is what is going to drive more solar in the U.S. It’s much more important and noteworthy to see fifteen 100-megawatt projects sign power-purchase agreements in a given state than it is to see [one] 1,000-megawatt project.”

“The area where size does matter and bigger is better is energy storage,” Smith added. “We are not far away from hearing about not being able to add more solar unless more storage is added to the grid as well.”

California can hit its goal of going carbon neutral by 2045 if it pulls emissions out of the air and slashes greenhouse gases from farming, landfills and other sources, according to a federal study released yesterday.

The nation’s most populous state needs to remove 125 million tons of carbon emissions per year from the atmosphere, roughly equivalent of removing 26 million cars from its roads annually, said an analysis by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The state has adopted numerous policies to cut its emissions, but those won’t be enough. Pollution sources that are tougher to reach, including those in the transportation, agriculture and industrial sectors, will have to be addressed more aggressively, the analysis said. State leaders will also have to race into the frontier of climate action: removing CO2 from the air.

“Without CO₂ removal, reaching our carbon neutrality goal will be slower, more difficult and costly,” Sarah Baker, a chemist and a lead author of the report, said in a statement. “While there are no silver bullets, we have evaluated strategies that rely on many existing technologies and resources, creating a CO₂ removal blueprint that can be replicated.”

A 2018 executive order from then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D) requires the state to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 and maintain net negative emissions thereafter. If the state accomplishes the aim, the analysis said, it can show other states and countries how to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

The analysis recommended three solutions. It said the Golden State should capture and store carbon using better land management, convert biomass waste to fuels and store the associated greenhouse gas pollution, and remove carbon from the air using machines that are not yet widely available.

It will cost about $10 billion per year—about 0.4% of the value of goods and services produced annually by the Golden State.

Removing carbon from the atmosphere, or direct air capture, is a cornerstone of the report.

“It is more expensive than most negative emissions options for California but has a nearly unlimited technical capacity,” the analysis said.

The technology involves absorbing carbon into a solvent or onto a solid material. Then that carbon is released into a stream for storage. The process is energy intensive, the report said, and using solar or wind to power the system would mean taking up swaths of land. For that reason, the report said, it focused on direct air capture using solvent-based systems powered by natural gas with CO₂ capture and systems powered by geothermal energy.

Improving how the state manages its landscape is also a top strategy, the report said. Natural and working lands cover over 90% of California. That acreage includes farmland, rangeland, forests, woodlands, wetlands, coastal areas, grasslands, shrub land, riparian areas and urban green space.

“These lands can clearly act as carbon sinks given the living plant matter they host, but they can also act as carbon sources when they burn, are cultivated intensively using conventional fertilization and tilling practices, or are converted from their natural state to another land use,” the study said.

The analysis suggested changes to forest management: adding trees to sites burned by wildfire, rotating crops, and turning areas that have been used for growing corn and other pastures into wetlands.

Changing how the state deals with waste is another solution, the report said. That includes agriculture residue, trash from cities and counties, gaseous waste from landfills and anaerobic digesters, sawmill residue, and shrubs and chaparral.

Currently, most of the carbon from biomass is produced as the biomass decays, burns or is used to produce energy at power plants that vent carbon emissions.

The technology with the lowest cost and the greatest potential for negating emissions is gasification of solid biomass to produce hydrogen. Converting biomass to hydrogen “generates the most recoverable CO₂, since nearly all of the carbon in the biomass can be captured during processing.”

The report also looked at producing liquid fuels from biomass. Those could help displace fossil fuels from air transportation and heavy industry.

More research is needed to make the solutions work for California, the report said. Waste biomass conversion and direct air capture will require “a broad range of technologies.” While some of those are ready now, others are in early development and likely are more costly today than they will be when better developed.

“Learning is a critical aspect of reducing the cost of new technologies, which requires deployment in the field,” it said.

Germany now generates over 35 percent of its yearly electricity consumption from wind and solar sources. Over 30 000 wind turbines have been built, with a total installed capacity of nearly 60 GW. Germany now has approximately 1.7 million solar power (photovoltaic) installations, with an installed capacity of 46 GW. This looks very impressive.

Unfortunately, most of the time the actual amount of electricity produced is only a fraction of the installed capacity. Worse, on “bad days” it can fall to nearly zero. In 2016 for example there were 52 nights with essentially no wind blowing in the country. No Sun, no wind. Even taking “better days” into account, the average electricity output of wind and solar energy installations in Germany amounts to only about 17 percent of the installed capacity.

The obvious lesson is: if you want a stable, secure electricity supply, then you will need reserve, or backup sources of electricity which can be activated on more or less short notice to fill the gaps between electricity demand and the fluctuating output from wind and solar sources.

The more wind and solar energy a nation decides to generate, the more backup capacity it will require. On “bad days” these backup sources must be able to supply up to 100 percent of the nation’s electricity demand. On “good days” (or during “good hours”) the backup sources will be used less, or even turned off, so that their capacity utilization will also be poor. Not very good economics.

Much better would be to limit wind and solar to a relative minimum, and rely instead upon controllable, non-fluctuating power sources operating with a high capacity factor, to meet the nation’s base load electricity requirements and to adjust total output in accordance with varying demand. This corresponds to world-wide practice prior to the recent huge buildup with renewable energy.

In theory the ideal backup for wind and solar energy would be to store excess electricity produced when the Sun is shining and strong winds are blowing, and inject it back into the grid when needed. Unfortunately, electricity is a difficult and expensive commodity to store.

By far the most efficient presently available solution for storing excess electric power is to use it to pump water against gravity into a reservoir. When electricity is needed again, it is produced by letting water flow down again via a turbine generator. In this process about 25 percent of the energy is lost.

Naturally, the costs of construction and operation of such pump storage plants will add to the real costs of providing electricity. Plus, these installations use up a large amount of land area.

Here, too, Germany provides an instructive example. A 2014 study by the Bavarian Ministry of Energy came to the conclusion that pump storage plants were not an economically viable solution. Much better would be to exploit already existing water reservoir resources in Norway and Sweden, where the capacity of pump storage plants can be greatly expanded and new ones built at much lower cost.

This “solution,” however, would require transporting large amounts of electricity over long distances back and forth between Germany and those countries – which in turn would require additional high-voltage lines and cables that have not been built and that no one wants to pay for.

Given the high costs and other obstacles to creating large electricity storage systems, it is not surprising that Germany’s electricity storage capacity amounts today to less than 2 percent of total electricity output.

There has been much discussion and research concerning alternative ways to store electricity. Theoretically one could be to use excess power to produce hydrogen, store it somehow and then use fuel cells to generate electricity back from the hydrogen. This would be vastly more expensive than pump storage, however, and with much greater losses.

Overdose of renewables?

Today, in order to guarantee stable baseline power and fill the gaps left by its fluctuating wind and solar generators, Germany is forced to rely on (1) CO2-spouting coal and natural gas power plants; (2) its remaining handful of nuclear plants, which it plans to shut down by 2022; and most notably (3) importing electricity from other European nations.

Most of the imports come from France, where about 75 percent of electricity is produced by nuclear plants, and from Sweden, where 40 percent is nuclear-produced. On “bad days” Germany could hardly get along without a piece of this much-dreaded nuclear energy.

On “good days” Germany floods the rest of Europe with excess power from its wind and solar installations, often at dumping or even negative prices. In this way Germany has turned its huge amounts of wildly fluctuating renewable power sources into a European-wide problem.

Even with the flourishing European electricity trade, however, Germany is still far from being able to close down its coal and gas power plants.

The German Energy Agency (DENA) published a long-term scenario for electricity production in Germany, based on the assumption that so-called renewable sources should account for 80 percent of total electricity consumption by the year 2050.

Among other things DENA concluded that in order to ensure a stable electricity supply, Germany would still need to maintain 61 gigawatts of conventional power plant capacity “in reserve” and for a remaining portion of base-load production. Electricity storage systems would provide only 9 percent of reserve capacity in 2050.

Despite – and to a large extent because of — the massive expansion of renewables, conventional power capacity could only be reduced by 14 percent up to 2030 and by a maximum of 37 percent by 2050.

Given the government’s commitment to shut down nuclear energy in Germany, this would mean keeping a large reserve of CO2 -emitting, fossil fuel-based generation capacity. At the same time the political decision has been made to phase out the coal-power stations which up to now have produced the largest part of Germany’s electricity.

That leaves essentially only petroleum (heating oil) and natural gas as realistic fuels for backup power. Natural gas would take first place because it generates about 50 percent less CO2 per kWh of electricity than coal or petroleum-powered plants.

With this background one can appreciate the German government’s concern to guarantee long-term supplies of natural gas at stable prices. Hence also the government’s insistence on the North Stream 2 project to build a system of offshore natural gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.

The good news, so to speak, is that for most of the time the backup plants would operate at only a fraction of their installed capacity, with many even standing still on “good days.” That way they would release much less CO2 to the atmosphere.

That’s nice for the environment, but not a very efficient way to utilize equipment, infrastructure and manpower – and not very attractive for investors. Also it’s still far from the green dream of a CO2-free energy system.

Preserving the stability of Germany’s electricity grid while at the same time integrating tens of thousands of fluctuating energy sources distributed over the entire country has been a major technical challenge. It has meant reorganizing much of the electricity transmission and distribution system, which was designed and built to operate in a completely different regime.

It means also the construction of thousands of kilometers of new high-voltage lines, including four projected long-distance transmission lines which are needed to move electricity from the windy north to the industrial west and south of the country. This again adds to the real (systemic) costs of supplying the country with electricity.

There is no doubt that the attempted transition to renewable sources as the foundation of Germany’s energy system – Angela Merkel’s famous “Energiewende” – has already significantly reduced the country’s economic efficiency. The constantly rising electricity prices, taxes and levies only begin to reflect the true costs of the government’s policy. There is also a debate concerning the future stability of the electricity grid.

Merkel and others often argue that a successful “Energiewende” would place Germany in a unique position to export know-how and technology for the ongoing “green transformation” of the world economy. Increased income from export of green technology is supposed to compensate for the costs of the Energiewende. This calculation assumes that the other countries will choose to follow the radical German example in reorganizing their power sectors, which is doubtful.

Meanwhile resistance has been growing inside Germany itself, as local environmental groups and citizens’ initiatives mobilize to block construction of wind turbines, transmission lines, pump power stations and other renewable energy projects.

The environmentalist ideology is coming into contradiction with itself. The unprecedented scale of destruction of the natural landscape by 30 000 gigantic wind turbines has brought a growing realization, that reliance on renewable energy is by no means friendly to the environment – and not necessarily safe.

People don’t want to live near wind turbines, because of unpleasant noise and possibly dangerous infrasound emissions, disturbing optical effects, reports of fires, broken-off turbine blades flying through the air, ice throws, etc. And the dead birds.

In Germany there is political pressure to increase the legally-set minimum for the distance between wind turbines and houses to 1 or even 1.5 kilometers, which would drastically reduce the availability of construction sites. Already, protests and law suits have brought the construction of new wind turbines in Germany to a near-standstill.

Solar energy has encountered much less resistance, no doubt to a large extent because only a few large solar farms have been built in the country. Most of the present capacity comes from roof-mounted solar cells, especially on private houses, where they have become quite popular.

The big problem is how to store the electricity, which is generated only during daylight hours and fluctuates according to the cloud cover. So far relatively few house owners have been willing to pay for batteries and other storage devices. Instead, excess electricity is taken up by the grid at a subsidized price.

Projects for pump storage stations, and for new transmission lines have met with such intense resistance, that there is little chance of fulfilling the original goals of the Energiewende.

The question is, whether it makes sense at all to depart from the tried-and-proven model of a stable electricity system based on continuously functioning sources, a large percentage operating in base load mode.

Wind power is growing in the US

The American Wind Energy Association has released their fourth-quarter 2019 market report, and the numbers are going in the right direction. The wind industry is on the rise in the US, with installations for the year at 9,143MW.

There is now 105,583MW of wind energy operating in the US, with nearly 60,000 wind turbines spinning across 41 states and two US territories.

Here are the takeaways, for those of you who love stats:

• 2019 was the third strongest year ever for new wind addition, and a 20% increase over 2018.
• Nearly 200 new wind projects are in the works.
• The US now has enough installed wind to power over 32 million homes.
• Fourth quarter 2019 was the fourth-strongest quarter on record.
• Texas (3,936MW) and Iowa (1,737MW) are the country’s leaders in wind energy.
• Illinois (541 MW), South Dakota (506MW), and Kansas (475MW) came in third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.
• Utilities and corporate customers signed a record 8,726MW of power purchase agreements (PPAs) in 2019.
• Walmart and AT&T were two of the top three wind buyers in 2019.
• Baker Hughes, Estee Lauder, and McDonald’s bought wind for the first time.
• The pipeline of new wind projects under construction or in advanced development is 24% larger than it was in January 2019.
• 191 wind projects across 33 states are now in the works, or 44 gigawatts of capacity, which will be able to power another 15 million American homes.
• Offshore wind projects now account for 17% of the development pipeline, totaling 7,483MW.
• Virginia now has more advanced projects than any other state, due to Dominion Energy’s 2.6GW offshore project.

Rikers Island may go green

New York City’s notorious Rikers Island has been the city’s main jail complex since 1932, and it’s closing in 2026. Queens councilman Costa Constantinides has put forward a proposal to turn the complex into a green energy hub, and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson is enthusiastically backing it.

Johnson says the plan would help New York City reach its goal of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050.

Crains’ New York Business writes:

Constantinides’ bills would obligate the city to conduct feasibility studies on placing renewable energy arrays, battery storage, and a wastewater plant on the 413-acre isle, which the councilman — himself currently running for Queens borough president — hopes would allow the closure of existing power and sewage facilities near residential neighborhoods. Another of his proposals would require the city Department of Corrections to remand the 413-acre isle to the Department of Environmental Protection by 2026.

William & Mary gets solar

The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, was founded in 1693. The historic college is forward-thinking: The college has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Dominion Energy that will source nearly 50% of the university’s electricity from solar. It will save the college money after around six years.

A 20MW solar farm will be installed by Strata Solar on a farm in nearby James City County.

The college explains:

At that rate, W&M will be sourcing a greater percentage of renewable energy than any other public university in the state. With electricity being the largest part of W&M’s carbon footprint, the agreement gets the university one step closer to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 — a goal it announced last fall in partnership with the University of Virginia.

Initial work on the project will begin in the next couple of months, and solar production is expected to begin next year.