PG&E Hosts Energy Efficiency Training Workshop for Green Campus Interns

April 2010
by Wen Lee

April 2010 – PG&E's Pacific Energy Center (PEC) is well-known for its education programs, including training workshops open to the public. Offered free of charge, these workshops teach residents and businesses about new energy efficiency technologies, and show them how to save on energy bills and conduct audits.

But on April 3, the PEC opened its doors especially for the Alliance's Green Campus interns, who visited the San Francisco center for a private energy efficiency training workshop. Luckily, as an Alliance program associate, I was also invited to the event. It was my first visit to the PEC, and I was immediately impressed by the cool, gleaming education displays, classrooms full of techno-gizmos, and the knowledgeable and friendly staff.

Inside the Classroom

I was joined by ten interns representing Green Campus teams from UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, UC Merced and Humboldt State University for the all-day workshop.

Led by PEC Project Manager Ryan Stroupe, the workshop introduced the interns to campus auditing techniques, equipment training, cutting-edge energy-efficient technology and green jobs.

In the Field

After Ryan gave an informative lecture-style presentation, we took a walking tour of the PEC building. We learned about the many cutting edge technologies they had on display, including low-e glass windows, which can help keep heat inside (or outside, depending on the season) a building.

We were also shown the HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) underbelly of the PEC, and taught how to install energy loggers on motors and lights throughout the building to monitor energy use.

At the end of the day, we were sent on an "energy audit treasure hunt", during which we split into pairs and performed a variety of exercises, including searching the building for magnetic lighting ballasts, taking illuminance levels and calculating lighting power densities.

Next Stop: the Green Workforce

The hands-on experience and in-depth training was fantastic, and definitely a hit with our Green Campus interns. "Thank you for setting up this opportunity for us," said one intern. "It was extremely informative in that it allowed us to improve our future audits and train new interns ourselves with a higher degree of quality."

Many interns expressed that they were excited to not only bring this knowledge back to their intern teams, but to further disseminate this information throughout their campuses – more proof that education is a powerful tool with which to advance energy efficiency in our communities.