“They wanted to do as much on campus to reduce our emissions as possible,” Nyquist said. “That's when we came up with the master plan to convert to hot water, so that we can use heat pumps to make hot water for the campus.”

Princeton University is also developing a green field campus across the lake from its main campus. The “clean sheet” excites Nyguist, as this will be the site of a small plant that will supply the entire campus with geoexchange energy with heat pumps using 120-degree water.

Suzanne Kitten, managing director of Utilities at Texas Tech University, said her campus is in the “infancy stages,” and reducing energy usage first and foremost.

Shantel Smith, deputy director of utilities management at University of Wyoming noted decarbonization “is mostly driven by student involvement.” Boasting that many in the sustainability committee of students have an education in the oil, gas and coal industries, while it’s a potential conflict, “we do take their input seriously.”

Dave Woodson, executive director of campus energy, utilities, and operations at the University of Washington, noted his local utility is 100% green already. The problem is capacity constraint on the grid, Woodson added.

“Like Suzanne said with making building more efficient, that very much is a priority in our context as well,” Woodson concluded.