Vanderbilt University
Summary
Vanderbilt University and the city of Nashville, Tennessee, have announced a Green Invest partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nashville Electric Service—a collaboration that will allow the region to take a bold step forward in expanding availability and access to renewable energy at a critical time in global efforts to address the threat of climate change.
Through this new partnership, Vanderbilt is tackling climate change head-on by working towards its goal of powering its campus entirely through renewable energy and committing to carbon neutrality.
“We hope this groundbreaking partnership between government, business, and universities will be a model of innovative collaboration to address the most important issues of our time,” said Chancellor Daniel Diermeier.
The renewable power for Vanderbilt and Nashville will come from a solar farm to be built in Tullahoma, Tennessee, by Nashville-based Silicon Ranch Corporation. This marks the university’s second solar project with TVA, NES and Silicon Ranch through TVA’s Green Invest program. Vanderbilt will be a 25-megawatt co-subscriber to the array for campus operations.
Vanderbilt will reach its renewable energy goal just over four years after the university made its initial commitment in 2019. Vanderbilt’s initial partnership, announced in January 2020, will mitigate approximately 70 percent of the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by fall 2022. The second Green Invest project will supply enough renewable energy to offset the remaining 30 percent of the university’s annual indirect greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity by fall 2023.
The agreement is also anticipated to provide hundreds of new jobs during the construction of the solar project as well as unique educational and research opportunities for the Vanderbilt community with both solar farm locations within close proximity to the Nashville area.
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