UC/CSU/IOU Energy Efficiency Partnership Program

Like most university systems, the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) Systems face the challenge of educating growing numbers of students while grappling with shrinking budgets and rising energy costs. Concurrently, the state of California’s Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) are aggressively harvesting cost-effective, reliable energy savings which meet their customers’ needs -- recognizing that a dollar saved on energy costs is a dollar available to educate another student. In 2003, consultant Dian Grueneich -- currently a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Commissioner -- saw the potential synergies between these entities and helped formulate a unique and powerful partnership.

The Energy Efficiency Partnership Program is an ambitious statewide endeavor, unprecedented in both scope and scale. It represents the first time that California’s four IOUs -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and Southern California Gas Company – have worked collaboratively with specific statewide partners, namely the UC and CSU systems, representing 11 and 23 campuses, respectively. The program, which began with an initial two-year phase, has become the nation’s most comprehensive energy efficiency program serving the higher education sector, designed and implemented to achieve sustained energy savings and to influence energy policy in the education sector nationwide.

The program uses four key strategies: energy efficiency retrofits; emerging technology demonstrations; monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx); and training and education. Together, this multifaceted approach combines innovative technology, processes, and program management to deliver a comprehensive program with far-ranging impacts for California and beyond. The MBCx strategy is particularly innovative, and introduces the use of new and permanent metering and trending capabilities, combined with operator training, to identify immediate energy use reduction opportunities and ensure long-term savings through the ongoing optimization of building operations. As a critical component of the program, hundreds of engineers, consultants, and campus facility staff have received hands-on training in both retro-commissioning and continuous commissioning using advanced metering and data visualization tools. This program has essentially transformed the California commissioning marketplace as many of these professionals have carried their knowledge and experience into other market sectors.

During the first cycle of 2004-2005, the partners exceeded their electric and gas savings goals for kW, kWh/year and therms/year by achieving 123%, 129% and 146% of the goals, respectively. This translates to total program savings of over 4.5 MW, 30 million kWh/yr, and 1.4 million therms/yr. These results were verified on a campus level, rechecked through a technical due-diligence process by each utility, and ultimately confirmed by an independent measurement and verification process. The energy savings have prevented more than 19,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The partners also achieved significant additional savings from the training and education program. Among other impacts, the green building and new construction-related training courses improved the design of 98 UC buildings and saved an estimated $4.1 million in annual operating costs. The Partnership also reached thousands of students via ASE’s very successful Green Campus Program, leading the way toward campus sustainability by bridging the divide between students and campus energy costs.

One of the challenges met successfully by the project team was merging participants from very different corporate cultures and backgrounds into working groups. Another key challenge met was equipping facility energy managers with the tools and expertise required to understand and utilize the controls and systems put in place in campus facilities.

The overall program, including utility administrative costs, was held to a cost effectiveness threshold test as defined by the CPUC, which is based on acceptable total resource cost ratios applicable to programs funded with public-good dollars. As additional evidence of the program’s cost effectiveness and energy savings, the CPUC approved the Partnership program for the next three-year program cycle now in progress. The program’s funding levels have more than doubled on an annual basis, and energy savings goals have increased approximately four-fold.

The Partnership Program is designed to achieve replicable results and serve as a catalyst for future energy efficiency gains by:
• Training university staff and their contractors, totaling over 2,000 training days so far. This training was focused on improving the energy efficiency knowledge base of both the operating staff of existing buildings and project managers involved with new building construction. This increased knowledge and complimentary new skills will translate into future energy savings.
• Documenting “Best Practices” in various categories, including building operations, energy efficiency system retrofits, and new construction. Identified on an ongoing basis, these Best Practices were captured in a case study format and distributed through the campus systems.
• Serving as a model for other higher education partnership endeavors, including a similar three-year program for 2006-2008 for California’s Community College System, which includes 112 campuses and represents annual utility costs of over $60 million.

The UC/CSU/IOU partners are currently promoting the success of the program and associated “lessons learned” through a series of papers and presentations to various technical, trade-group, and stakeholder organizations.