Energy Program News

In summer 2019, six Clean Energy Corps students from UMass Amherst traveled to Newton to complete a greenhouse gas inventory and clean energy plan for the new Mt. Ida campus, using skills and techniques acquired in a spring 2019 course led by Clean Energy Extension faculty and staff.

In 2018, Dugan Becker, UMass Amherst ’19, was chosen as a CAFE Summer Scholar to collect data that resulted in recommendations for reducing municipal vehicle fuel consumption in rural Massachusetts towns.   His efforts, in collaboration with CEE staff, are featured in a recent news article.

Through a recent grant announced by the Baker/Polito administration, UMass Water and Energy Testing (WET) Center facility will installing, monitoring and commissioning a wastewater source heat pump, which will provide renewable and consistent heating, cooling and hot water to the Amherst Wastewater Treatment Plant from a renewable source.

As a component of their Spring 2019 course, the UMass Clean Energy Corps presented their findings this week to stakeholders from the municipalities of Cohasset, Colrain, Montague, Northampton, South Hadley, and Whately, as well as two non-profits, the Drama Studio in Springfield and North Quabbin Harvest Co-op. Faculty and staff from the Building Construction Technology program and the Clean Energy Extension were also in attendance. Working with professor Dr. Ben Weil, the students visited the communities over the course of the semester, conducted in-depth analyses, and then developed proposals that would cut energy use in the largest energy-consuming facilities.