Fairbanks Museum details decade of upgrades from LED retrofits to mass‑timber Science Annex

Fairbanks Museum staff told the Vermont Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on Feb. 12 that the museum has completed a decade of energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects, including LED retrofits, multiple solar installations, buried power lines, battery backup across its campus and a new mass‑timber Tang Science Annex.

The presentation matters because the museum sits on an acre‑and‑a‑half campus in downtown St. Johnsbury that includes National Register‑listed buildings with old systems; the upgrades aim to lower operating costs, protect the historic collection from flood and water intrusion, and support downtown economic activity.

Em, a presenter from the Fairbanks Museum, said the museum “doesn’t really have a lot of money” and described a stepwise program of projects paid for by federal grants, state programs and private donors. The museum replaced roughly 400 museum fixtures with LEDs and installed an initial 11‑kilowatt rooftop solar array; later projects included off‑site community solar, a 60‑kilowatt off‑site array, and a 26‑kilowatt solar parking canopy with two Level…