Through the Consortium for Climate Solutions, Tufts aims to achieve a 40% reduction in emissions.
On Nov. 21, Tufts University announced an immediate 40% reduction in energy-related emissions on its Boston health sciences campus, a significant step toward the university’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. This milestone stems from Tufts’ participation in the Consortium for Climate Solutions, a collaboration led by MIT, Harvard and Mass General Brigham to fund technologies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
Tufts plans to cut carbon emissions through two primary strategies. The first involves electrifying key facilities across its campuses, including the Jaharis Family Center in Boston, the lower campus in Somerville and both the large and small animal hospitals in Grafton. These changes will replace traditional steam systems with air-source heat pumps.
In addition to campus electrification, Tufts is participating in a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement through PowerOptions, which is a member of the Consortium for Climate Solutions.
According to the Harvard Office of Sustainability’s website, “A virtual power purchase agreement, or VPPA, grants energy buyers the right to renewable energy certificates generated by a specific project. VPPAs do not involve the physical delivery of electricity. VPPAs are long-term contracts that facilitate renewable energy development, as they help enable projects to be financed. The underlying project itself may not necessarily be in close proximity to a buyer’s electricity consumption.”
Tina Woolston, director of Tufts’ Office of Sustainability, described how this agreement works financially.
“A developer finds land outside of the campus, and then they make a contract with the university where we say we’re going to buy the power for 15 years, but then they build it and sell the electricity into the local area,” she explained.
Lisa Richey, director of energy marketing at Apex Clean Energy, added, “It’s kind of a hedge against energy costs without having to take physical custody of the power.”
Richey also noted that these agreements provide the certificates that organizations can use to subtract from their emissions. “A renewable energy credit is an offset to what you use,” she said. “That’s really what the VPPA is getting them access to.”
Tufts partnered with PowerOptions, a nonprofit energy-buying consortium, to navigate the complexities of these agreements. Liam Sullivan, vice president of marketing and communications at PowerOptions, emphasized their role in simplifying the process for smaller organizations.
“[These agreements] are incredibly complex, but our role is to take something complex and be able to translate that to understandable language that [partners] can wrap their heads around,” Sullivan said.
PowerOptions brought eight organizations into the Consortium for Climate Solutions, including the City of Cambridge, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, the Museum of Fine Arts, GBH and Tufts.
Sullivan explained, “We really act as the trusted energy advisor to these organizations. And because the organizations that participated all had goals around sustainability, emission reduction [and] climate action, this was a great opportunity for some of them who were able to participate.”
The consortium ultimately contracted Apex Clean Energy to develop renewable projects. Richey noted that collaborating with multiple smaller organizations, including Tufts, was a unique opportunity.
Apex selected Texas and Nebraska as project sites due to the regions’ heavier reliance on fossil fuels, making renewable energy development there more impactful.
“The New England grid is very clean in terms of the fuel mix and the amount of renewable clean energy that’s in everybody’s electric supply. So it was part of the strategy … to look at regions where [this project] would have the bigger impact,” Sullivan said.
The Big Elm Solar Plant is already online, and the Bowman Wind Project in Bowman County, N.D., is set to come online in 2026.
