MSU Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, or IPF, building services will design and install the interconnection of the MSU electrical grid and solar power.

Parking lots 83, 89, 91, 92 and 100 were proposed as the spots where solar arrays will be installed.

MSU plans enter into a long-term Power Purchase Agreement for renewable energy and to purchase all power produced by the solar arrays at a fixed rate.

After six years of operation, MSU will have the option to purchase the arrays at a one or more times.

The solar power-generating system is expected to eventually yield up to 10 megawatts of power for MSU's campus about 16 percent of the power used during MSU peak hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Wolfgang Bauer, an MSU physics professor and senior consultant with the Office of the Executive Vice President said during the meeting that the solar arrays have potential to save MSU up to $10 million in annual electrical costs. 

Bauer said that he estimates the cost of the arrays will be between $25 and $30 million and that doing the instillation as an institution as opposed to having another firm would be more expensive for the university.

Bauer said all of the green energy changes is to achieve higher performance, lower costs and higher efficiency.

"If you think about what you're reading in the newspaper about increasing costs of energy, what we've done is try to insulate ourselves from that turmoil at the same time of trying to shave costs," President Lou Anna K. Simon said.

MSU’s energy transition plan was announced back in 2012. Last spring, President Simon announced that MSU would stop using coal in the T. B. Simon Power Plant by the conclusion of 2016. 

In addition to the solar arrays, the plan to install an additional pipeline to deliver natural gas to Simon Power Plant has been put into the works.

Construction on the new pipeline is set to begin this fall, Bauer said.

MSU plans to switch over completely to natural gas in the near future as it is greener and now cheaper than coal.