Campus Energy
Cooling Tower #2 at the upper campus Physical Plant complex.
2023 Update! Learn more about UCSC's decarbonization & electrification planning here!
The campus Energy Department procures electricity, gas, and water from external utility providers, and also generates electricity on campus. On-campus generation consists of a natural gas turbine engine, and a solar panel array on top of McHenry Library. The turbine engine produces electricity with a portion of the natural gas purchased from external providers to meet about half of the campus electricity demand. It produces both power, and heat, making this a cogeneration unit. The waste heat collected from electric production almost meets the entire demand for heating in the buildings on science hill, and in parts of the campus core.
Utilities are "master metered" at the whole-campus level by the utility providers (PG&E, SCMU, UC ESU), and the Energy Department manages and maintains an internal, campus-owned, sub-metering system that meters at the building level.
The following charts represent a summary of the utilities purchased by UCSC over the past several years:
