The schools have signed a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement to buy renewable energy that will be generated by a newly-constructed 200-plus-acre solar farm in Texas. The new solar farm will be the 12th largest renewable energy project involving higher education institutions, in terms of megawatts. Because it will be built as a result of this purchase, the project will add additional renewable energy to the country's grid.

“The actions that these schools have taken illustrates true leadership, a collaborative approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and provides an example of how other campuses can meet their individual climate goals and support the transition of the electricity grid to cleaner sources of power,” Timothy Carter, president of Second Nature, said.

Fewer than 50 of the nation’s approximately 4,200 higher education institutions have initiated new large-scale renewable energy projects.

For Lehigh, the collective project, combined with other on-campus energy and efficiency efforts, will enable it to match 100 percent of its current electricity usage with renewable energy.

Lehigh’s share of the power will be the largest out of the four schools in the partnership and the cost of procuring this renewable energy will be competitive with its current sources of power.

Doug Spengel, Lehigh’s associate director of utilities and energy management, initiated the conversations with CustomerFirst Renewables, a renewable energy procurement consulting firm, in fall 2017 and Lehigh Facilities staff officially met with the firm for the first time in March 2018. In January 2019, several schools, including Muhlenberg and Lafayette, joined Lehigh and began collaborating in pursuit of a renewable energy project. Dickinson joined the effort five months later.