NC State’s Seize the Grid, a campaign that pushes the university toward 100 percent renewable energy by the year 2030, launched Wednesday on the Brickyard.
According to NC State’s 2012 – 2013 Annual Water and Energy report, the university paid $16,571,705 to Duke Energy, the campus’ electricity provider. Only 1 percent of the outputted energy from Duke Energy comes from renewable energy sources.
“We want people to see that going 100 percent renewable is not only environmentally responsible, but also economically viable,” said Stacy Partin, the campaign manager and a freshman studying environmental science. “In the long run, renewable energy is cheaper, and would provide just as many jobs as natural gas does.”
Seize the Grid is a joint effort between the Sierra Student Coalition and Fossil Free NCSU, an NC State student organization focused on decreasing campus fossil fuel dependency. The campaign is part of a national effort to bring more than 600 university campuses to operate solely on renewable energy within the next 15 years.
Wednesday’s launch campaign in the Brickyard cumulated 100 signatures for the petition.
“Right now, Seize the Grid is a grassroots movement at NC State,” said Hannah Frank, a junior studying Sustainable Food Systems for Global Health and co-president of Fossil Free NCSU. “At the end of the day, students are the stakeholders at this university, and it’s our responsibility to put pressure on the administration to secure a better future for the campus.”
Claire Wang, the Duke University campaign manager for Seize the Grid, contacted Partin to bring the movement to campus.
“We had been thinking about starting it on campus, and when Stacy came to us with the campaign, we thought it was the perfect time to start,” said Allison Kenlan, co-president of Fossil Free NCSU and a junior studying environmental science.
Fossil Free NCSU spearheaded the first clean energy bill in 2014, which was passed by the Association of Student Governments. The bill called upon the UNC System’s administration to put pressure on Duke Energy to produce more renewable energy for the UNC System, which contains 17 universities and 222,000 students.
“That was a huge victory for us,” Kenlan said. “We had been focusing on getting legislation passed at the system level for a while, and we’ve encountered a lot of road blocks. Now we want to focus our efforts within the campus with Seize the Grid.”
Partin said Seize the Grid’s next step is to contact the Office of Sustainability and other administrators with the resolution. “Since NC State is one of Duke Energy’s biggest consumers, we have the right to ask where the university’s energy comes from. We want to put pressure on them to generate more renewable energy, and for all of the campus’ energy to come from that source.”
Partin and Wang are also working on a toolkit to help potential campaign managers and plan to reach out to universities that haven’t adopted the Seize the Grid Campaign yet.
“We want others to be able to access important information and start their campaigns without the obstacles and difficulties we encountered,” Partin said.
Fossil Free NCSU meets Tuesdays weekly at 7:30 p.m. in Poe Hall, Room 532.
The online petition can be found on www.addup.org.
