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UC Davis

University of California, Davis Reduces Consumption, Costs and Carbon Emissions

Energy savings allow UC Davis to dedicate funds and attention to educating students.

For two decades, the University of California, Davis has aggressively pursued energy conservation projects, most recently under the Strategic Energy Partnership program with investor-owned utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric. Using these resources, UC Davis partnered with Johnson Controls on a design-build retrofit project that will reduce energy consumption by more than 2.8 million kilowatt-hours per year for an annual savings of $370,000 – a significant amount that can be directed back into the campus’s core mission of teaching, research and public service.

Fully Funded by Utility Incentives

UC Davis is one of the nation’s top public research universities and the largest of the University of California system’s campuses. It comprises 5,300 acres, hundreds of buildings and a student enrollment of more than 32,000. While UC Davis has had a long-term commitment to sustainability, it recently entered into a formal Strategic Energy Partnership with California’s investor-owned utilities to help fund energy efficiency projects.

The program leverages utility incentives that are available to help fund energy efficiency projects designed to reduce energy consumption, operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Energy savings and external financing, in the form of 15-year revenue bonds, are also used to offset remaining costs. UC Davis is one of nine campuses and four UC medical centers involved in the program.

UC Davis chose its strategic energy partners based on a “best value” approach: those suppliers who will best help the school meet its sustainability goals and dramatically reduce energy costs. Johnson Controls earned points for the responsiveness of the project schedule, the company’s experience in retrofitting occupied buildings and the projected cost per kilowatt-hour. Johnson Controls’ proposal outlined potential electrical savings and therms savings that would result from the proposed energy conservation measures.

Out: Unnecessary Energy Usage. In: Energy-efficient Technologies.

The UC Davis project includes facility retrofits, equipment exchanges and efficient new designs that will allow occupants to work as efficiently as the buildings themselves. Those changes include:

  • Improvements in eight key facilities on campus, including academic and administration buildings, a gymnasium and the student health center. The plan identified 45 energy conservation measures, including lighting retrofits and expansion of the existing Johnson Controls and other building controls systems.
  • Replacement of chillers, air handling units and rooftop air-conditioning equipment with energy-efficient YORK® equipment in select facilities.
  • Installation of variable frequency drives, high efficiency motors and pumps, boiler and chiller replacements, heat recovery strategies and additional metering.
INSTITUTE FOR BUILDING EFFICIENCY

Read What’s New for IBE:

 

Energy Savings Calculator Our easy-to-use Energy Efficiency Calculator lets you estimate energy cost savings, improve productivity, and reduce carbon emissions through building improvements.
LOWER ENERGY COSTS
32090 When it comes to creating a comfortable, carbon-neutral campus, Johnson Controls is at the top of its class.

See how we helped George Washington University (PDF) cut energy use and carbon emissions with high-efficiency HVAC equipment, maintenance services, and a Metasys® building management system. Now the university is well on its way to achieving its goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.
UC Davis
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