这都是权力的问题。我们如何生产，使用多少，浪费多少。

These issues were at the heart of the work the College’s Power4Women task force did for a year. Composed of trustees, faculty, staff, and students, the task force looked at how to best meet Wellesley’s energy needs while also working toward the goals of the sustainability plan adopted in 2016. The group’s work was already critical, but it became even more urgent after the College’s 24-year-old cogeneration plant failed this past summer.

“我们知道热电厂已经走到了尽头，已经超过了使用寿命，”财务和行政副总裁兼财务主管派珀·奥尔顿（Piper Orton）说。“我们需要制定一个计划，确保学院的电力、供暖和制冷供应。”亚博电竞

该计划于去年10月宣布，当时该学院承诺实施一项为期三年、耗资2400万美元的能源计划，该计划不仅将保持照明，还将减少学院的能源消耗和碳足迹。

The initiative will start with conservation measures—206 of them, in fact. “We’re going to invest $6 million in energy-conservation measures, and we expect to reduce electricity consumption by 18 percent and thermal energy consumption by 6 percent,” says Dave Chakraborty, assistant vice president for facilities management and planning. These measures range from sealing windows to adding sensors for automatic light control.

The remaining $18 million will be spent on the plants that keep the College running. The cogeneration plant will be dismantled, and a new peak-shaving power plant will be installed. Previously, the cogeneration plant created almost all of the College’s electricity from its natural-gas-fired engines. Once the new plant is installed, it will only generate electricity during peak usage or a failure of the town’s system. “The plant is designed to run 600 hours [a year], but we don’t expect it to run for that much,” Chakraborty says. “If there is a failure in the grid for, say, a snowstorm, we can then run our own generators. … It gives us resiliency.”

And generating its own electricity during peak demand keeps the College on a lower rate all year long. “That will essentially cut our rate for electricity … about in half,” Orton says.

当前的牛排m-absorption chiller plant for the air-conditioning systems will be replaced with an all-electric plant, and the boilers for the heating system will be refurbished to extend their lives by 10 to 15 years. “We didn’t want to have a system or a design that locked us into any one strategy for a long period of time,” says Lawry Jones Meister ’83, trustee and chair of the Power4Women task force. “We know that the world is changing really quickly, and we want to keep a degree of flexibility.” The College will pursue discussions with potential partners to increase production of energy from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power.

这项倡议只是学院朝着碳中和的最终目标的开始。这些初步措施将使学院的温室气体排放量比2010年基准水平减少37%，并将公用事业成本降低约10%。

实现2016年可持续发展计划目标的下一个阶段现在由一个新的工作组E2040来完成。奥尔顿说：“我们还需要采取更多措施来继续推进这一进程。”。“我们希望人们不要把2400万美元视为一个终点，而是一个起点。”