Delaware State University unveiled its new Renewable Energy Education Center Monday morning, which faculty and state officials hope will put students in line for green energy jobs.
DSU received a $720,000 four-year grant from Exelon and Delmarva Power to help them develop the center, which is located inside of the university’s Luna I. Mishoe Science Center.
The center’s project manager William Pickrum said the curriculum will launch this fall with the primary goal of exposing students to opportunities in renewable energy career fields.
“We want to make sure as our students matriculate through this university, they have an opportunity to be part of the second-fastest growing industry in this country behind the medical profession - renewable energy,” Pickrum said.
It also builds on the state’s Pathways to Prosperity initiative in public high schools, that pairs students with fields that need workers, said Delmarva Power regional president Gary Stockbridge.
“Every year we have a tremendous amount of solar going in across the system,” Stockbridge said. “It’s not just the installation, there’s a whole industry behind it. You have the manufacturing of the technology, you have the installation, you have kind of the environmental aspects of it within the state government.”
The First State has a goal of generating 25 percent of the state's electricity through renewable energy sources by 2025. Of that 25 percent, Thomas Noyes, the principal planner for renewable energy policy with Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said 3.5 percent of that is in solar energy.
And as DSU faculty are optimistic that the new renewable energy center will inspire more students to pursue renewable energy careers, Pickrum said he hopes the center will make DSU a model campus for renewable energy and sustainability throughout the state.
“We plan on procuring a palletizer to take our trash, convert it into pellets, so then in fact we can use those to produce energy,” Pickrum said.
DSU is in the process of gauging student interest to determine what is needed, including staff to help build the program.
The grant funding comes from money the state received as part of the Exelon and Pepco Holdings merger in March 2016. This initial grant will be spread over four years and could be renewed at the end of that period.
