Walking around Fairfield’s beautiful 200 acre campus, you don’t see any windmills. You won’t see many solar panels, and you won’t see any nuclear generators either.
What you will see is the Central Utility Facility (CUF), Fairfield’s energy producer, where the university produces primarily all of its energy.
In an age of alternative energy sources and nuclear power, Fairfield seems to be lagging behind many other schools when it comes to innovative energy production.
Why isn’t Fairfield trying any new-age way of lighting our halls and heating our buildings? Well, officials say they have tried.
Bill Auger, energy services manager for Fairfield, said the university hired United Cogen Inc. to look at possible nuclear energy solutions.
“The idea was to set up nuclear reactors and/or generators in the trailers like you see behind the Barone Campus Center to provide the energy,” Auger said, “but somebody has to pay for it. And that somebody is usually the student body so we decided against it… for now, at least.”
Solar power has not been used on any large scale.
Dr. Evangelos Hadjimichael, dean of the school of engineering, has integrated the study of alternative forms of energy into his curriculum. Four years ago, engineering seniors at Fairfield designed a solar-powered home at Townhouse 10.
Yet, according to Joe Bouchard, the university’s fire marshal, the unit has “about enough power to light a light bulb.”
There have been discussions about a new $2 million facility similar to CUF to be built somewhere in the quad that will be able to provide both heat and air-conditioning to all residence halls, according to Auger. But like adding new buildings, adding a new facility costs money.
“You have to hire people to run the facility, and then you have to deal with the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection),” said Auger. “It’s a process, but it is definitely one in the making.”
The many construction projects on campus, however, have opened the door to small improvements concerning the energy situation. With the addition to the Barone Campus Center, each energy-producing device on campus was renovated from the boiler to the lights, according to Auger.
All the lighting was upgraded to florescent lights instead of incandescent lighting. To provide new sources of energy for the new additions, Fairfield added three new boilers to CUF.
The university spends about $2.8 million a year on energy, up from $ 1.6 million in 1988, because of campus additions. In 1988, there was no Dolan School of Business, no Quick Center for the Arts and no Walsh Athletic Center. With new buildings come new places to heat, cool and light.
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