Solar at Tufts

Tufts’ earliest clean energy installation dates back to 1999 with 500 Watts of photovoltaics on Fairmont House, a small campus residence hall. Since then, Tufts has installed solar panels on residential and academic buildings across its Medford/Somerville campus. Through PowerOption’s Large Scale Solar program, two large ground-mounted photovoltaic systems were installed on the Grafton campus in 2017. In 2024, Tufts announced its participation in a first-of-its-kind aggregated renewable energy purchase that reduced energy-related emissions on the Boston health sciences campus by 40%.

Tufts funds solar installations in several ways: capital expenditure, grants, and Power Purchase Agreements (PPA)/Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPA). PPA's and VPPA's are mechanisms that allow Tufts to support solar energy development on a larger scale while maximizing the impact of our funding and carbon emissions reduction. Watch our solar energy webinar to hear more about how we use these solar energy strategies at Tufts.

Keep reading to learn where each solar array at Tufts is located, when it was installed, how it was funded, and how much energy it produces.

Big Elm Virtual Power Purchase Agreement

Using a procurement model known as a virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA), Tufts supported the creation of 20,000 megawatt hours of new solar energy in Texas – enough to power 1,800 homes a year. As a result of this project, Tufts reduced energy-related emissions on the Boston health sciences campus by 40%.

Year Installed: 2024

Funding: Virtual Power Purchase Agreement with Apex Clean Energy in collaboration with the Consortium for Climate Solutions, a first-of-its-kind group of higher education institutions, healthcare systems, nonprofit organizations, and a municipality in Cambridge and Boston, leveraging collective purchasing power to invest in renewable energy.

Power Produced: 7.6 MW (20,000 MWh annually)