Lake Land College is continuously improving their energy sustainability. Photo by Rawpixel./p>
Lake Land College (LLC) has been working to improve energy sustainability since 2009 and has made noticeable milestones in the last few years. “Our goal is to be as sustainable of a campus as we can to reduce our impact on the environment as well as reduce our carbon footprint,” said President Josh Bullock.
Over the course of 14 years, the college has done a tremendous amount of work to achieve the goal of becoming sustainable. As the college grows, it has continued to reduce its reliance on outside electricity and natural gas. To begin this journey, the college started using geothermal energy around 2009. “In geothermal, the heating and cooling from the ground helps heat and cool our buildings,” Bullock said. The college also has a nationally renowned geothermal well system that is integrated into all of the buildings, which is how the buildings on campus are cooled and heated. In addition to this, the college focused on integrating LED lighting into the buildings in order to reduce the use of incandescent and fluorescent lights, as these have chemicals that need special disposal.
The college has also done campus-wide building initiatives in which the school implemented bipolar ionization, a way to reduce particles and allergens in the air, as well as many types of viruses that circulate in the air. “It essentially takes up these molecules and binds them up together and captures them and that purifies our air,” said Bullock.
The campus used to make use of wind power, but it was not as effective despite the windy location. Because of this, LLC has now moved on to solar energy. This choice has been beneficial as the tops of buildings are able to be used to situate the solar panels. These panels are on the Vo-Tech Building, Webb Hall, West Building, Luther Student Center, Northeast Building, Neal Hall and the power plant building. These buildings combined have 700 kilowatts of power generation capacity.
Before LLC began its energy-saving initiative, over six million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 129 thousand therms of gas were being used. As of 2021, the college was able to get the number down to just under four million kWh, which was a result of the upgrades and expansion the college had gone through in the past decade. As for gas, the college went down to 48 thousand therms, cutting the usage by about 60%.
With all of the building and infrastructure, the college is able to save at least half a million a year through its energy-saving initiatives. “That is a powerful statement knowing that we are saving that much of funding, as well as doing our part to save the environment by doing our part to mitigate the negative impact that not being sustainable and using natural gas has on the environment, and we hope to use the resources we have available to keep benefitting the college,” Bullock affirmed.
