THE COLLEGE

Hoots and Holler

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The Board of Trustees votes to grant degrees to seniors at its May meeting.

The college’s new photovoltaic array in the Maine town of Skowhegan, about 60 miles northeast of campus, is nearing completion, and when it’s up and running, nearly 18,500 panels will feed into the regional grid 7.131 megawatts of direct current, which will be converted to alternating current for use by businesses and residences.

That’s about three-quarters of the college’s electrical usage, says Tom Twist, Bates’ sustainability manager. The college partnered with ReVision Energy, a leading solar facilities provider in Maine, on the array, the largest ReVision has built to date.

To be clear, Bates has met its electrical needs with renewable power since 2005, when the college began sourcing its juice in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates, which affirm that a certain amount of power has been generated sustainably. The college will continue to buy RECs for the roughly 25 percent of its electrical usage not produced by the solar array.

What the Skowhegan project will change is that Bates, in partnership with ReVision, will take direct responsibility for creating its own green electricity.

The array is located on more than 20 acres of Skowhegan countryside leased by landowner Jim Henshaw, a farmer. The staff land developer for ReVision who helped put the lease arrangement together is Holly Noyes ’10, who is also a farmer.

Bates students had a hand in the project’s development. While at Bates, Kyung Phil “KP” Ko ’22 was one of several EcoReps involved with creating a workable model for Bates’ involvement in a solar farm.

“We dug into the proposals sent over by a few parties, ReVision being one of them, to really understand what the benefits to Bates would be,” explains Ko, who now analyzes U.S. utilities and power issues for Scotiabank. “To be exact, the arrangement was a financial power purchase agreement, where Bates could hedge against the volatility of electricity bills thereby bringing us cost savings and monetizable renewable energy credits.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that the project has reached the construction stage,” Ko adds. “Working in the renewable energy investment banking space, I can tell you that the industry has faced incredible uphill battles over the past year with supply chain issues, inflation, bloated interconnection queues, and what almost was the end of solar investment tax credits.

Shown during construction in January with more than half the solar modules in place, the college’s new solar array sits on 20 acres of leased rural land in Skowhegan, Maine.

“Reaching construction is a humongous milestone worthy of hoots and holler.”

The work of Ko, his classmate Tamsin Stringer ’22, and other students was invaluable to the project. “To figure out the costs, figure out the net value of solar electricity several years into the future — all those things were complicated, and the students did a really nice job,” says Twist. “Really professional-level.”

New Bates Trustees

Five new members join the Bates Board of Trustees on July 1, 2023: @ Bates Trustees bates.edu/trustees

Amáez Joins Bates

Previously the global leader for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Simply Business, a Boston-based insurance provider, Amáez has held positions at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, where she guided senior leaders in their understanding and application of best practices in DEI; Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where she directed pro bono services for the nonprofit legal advocacy group; and Bowdoin College, where she spent eight years as associate dean of students for diversity and inclusion.

Amáez earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Wesleyan University and a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Jeremy Chase ’91, a healthcare investment professional Pranav Ghai ’93, analytics professional and financial-data platform co-founder

Marc Jaffe P’25, attorney specializing in corporate finance and corporate law

Jason Ryan ’96, life-sciences industry executive and board director