Overall Rating Platinum
Overall Score 88.13
Liaison Tonie Miyamoto
Submission Date Nov. 7, 2022

STARS v2.2

Colorado State University
OP-6: Clean and Renewable Energy

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.04 / 4.00 Carol Dollard
Energy Engineer
Facilities Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Total energy consumption (electric and non-electric)

Total energy consumption, performance year:
1,613,101.94 MMBtu

Clean and renewable energy sources

Clean and renewable electricity

Clean and renewable electricity (report kilowatt-hours):
kWh MMBtu
Imported electricity from certified/verified clean and renewable sources (i.e., bundled green power purchases) 204,829 Kilowatt-hours 698.88 MMBtu
Electricity from on-site, clean and renewable sources (rights retained/retired) 503,882 Kilowatt-hours 1,719.25 MMBtu

A brief description of the certified/verified sources of clean and renewable electricity:
Windsource is a service provided by Xcel Energy - providing 100% RE. CSU subscribes to Windsource at most of their remote campuses served by Xcel Energy.

From the Xcel website regarding Windsource:
"Windsource is supplied by 100% Colorado wind. With Windsource, the RECs are retired on your behalf, which allows you to say that they are offsetting or using renewable energy." Windsource is a Green-e certified product.

The links to the Xcel website and the Green-e product label is included in the file below.

A brief description of the on-site renewable electricity generating facilities/devices:
14 solar PV installations across all CSU campuses. An additional 21 systems are in construction adding 4,379 kW to our portfolio. This will add over 6 million kWh/yr in solar electricity generation on-site at CSU.

Clean and renewable thermal energy

Clean and renewable thermal energy (report MMBtu):
MMBtu
Clean and renewable stationary fuels used on-site to generate thermal energy 0 MMBtu
Imported steam, hot water, and/or chilled water from certified/verified clean and renewable sources 0 MMBtu

A brief description of the clean and renewable stationary fuels:
---

A brief description of the certified/verified sources of clean and renewable thermal energy:
---

Unbundled renewable energy products

Unbundled renewable energy products (report kWh):
kWh MMBtu
Purchased RECs, GOs, I-RECs or equivalent unbundled renewable energy products certified by a third party 3,918,830 Kilowatt-hours 13,371.05 MMBtu

A brief description of the unbundled renewable energy products:
Green-E Certified RECs; contracts are ongoing

Metrics used in scoring

Total clean and renewable energy generated or purchased:
15,789.17 MMBtu

Percentage of total energy consumption from clean and renewable sources:
0.98

Optional Fields

Website URL where information about the institution’s support for clean and renewable energy is available:
---

Sierra magazine requests the following information from U.S. institutions that wish to share data with that organization:

Electricity use, by source (percentage of total, 0-100):
Percentage of total electricity use (0-100)
Biomass 0
Coal 0
Geothermal ---
Hydro 0
Natural gas 0
Nuclear 0
Solar photovoltaic 0
Wind 0
Other (please specify and explain below) 0

A brief description of other sources of electricity not specified above:
The electricity factor used for GHG emissions accounting (as provided by local utilities) is 0.464 kgCO2e/kWh.

Energy used for heating buildings, by source::
Percentage of total energy used to heat buildings (0-100)
Biomass 0
Coal 0
Electricity 0
Fuel oil 0
Geothermal 3
Natural gas 97
Other (please specify and explain below) ---

A brief description of other sources of building heating not specified above:
---

Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
On January 25, 2017 CSU President, Dr. Tony Frank, signed the Climate Reality Pledge. This will lead to CSU being powered by 100% renewable electricity by 2030. CSU was one of the first universities to take this pledge. In 2018, both local and state-wide utilities serving the majority of CSU campuses made similar pledges for 100% RE; therefore, creating critical alignment for achieving this important goal.

CSU is the site host for a 5,300kW (8.5M kWh/yr) solar plant on the Foothills Campus. When built, in 2008-2009, this was one of the largest associated with a college/university campus. The RECs were sold to the local utility in order to finance the plant. CSU will be able to claim the RECs in 2030.

At the completion of the most recent project, CSU will be host to over 11.2 MW of solar installations on campus. CSU has retained the RECs to approximately 5 MW.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.