News
Center Student Develops Pedal-Powered Desk
UC Davis graduate students, including Energy Efficiency Center Emerging Venture Analyst, Tai Stillwater, designed a pedal-powered desk that can run a laptop. It is on display in the Griffin Lounge at Memorial Union and is composed of recycled and salvaged materials found in Davis. "Part of the mission we made for this project was to educate people about energy," said Stillwater in a California Aggie article written about the project. This initiative was funded by the Campus Sustainability Grant Program. Learn more about its construction on YouTube.
Western Cooling Challenge Launched
On June 5, UC Davis launched a new partnership program designed to reduce rooftop air conditioner electricity use in the western United States by over 40 percent. The “Western Cooling Challenge,” being spearheaded by the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center (WCEC), targets large retailers and manufacturers.
“The challenge aims to accelerate the adoption of regionally appropriate cooling technologies for new and existing low-rise, nonresidential buildings (such as suburban retail and office buildings).” It is a voluntary program that will require industry to meet performance specifications for new rooftop A/C units. US Western states that have dry summer climates are the target (e.g., California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico). The program specifically is aimed at reducing peak demand, one of the greatest challenges facing utilities. "With the Western Cooling Challenge, and its goal of reducing both energy use and peak demand from cooling by more than 40 percent, we are targeting a large market sector: the rooftop air conditioners that cool 70 percent of the floor area in non-residential buildings in the western U.S.,” said Dick Bourne, Associate Director of the WCEC. “These units are not optimized for dry climates, so there is a significant opportunity here to reduce electricity use and demand." See UC Davis press.
Singapore Ministry and National Environment Agency Representatives Visit UC Davis
The UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center was honored by a visit from representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and the National Environmental Agency of Singapore. Attending Ministry officials included Tan Yong Soon, Permanent Secretary; Philip Ong Wee Kiat, Director, Climate Change; Ng Chang Yue, Assistant Director, Climate Change. Agency officials included Joseph Hui Kim Sung, Director-General for Environmental Protection; A. Ram Bhaskar, Head of Energy Conservation in the Resource Conservation De
partment; and Tan Li Yen, Executive Engineer, Climate Change Unit. Also in attendance was Heng Jee See, Consul-General of the Republic of Singapore. Delegates were introduced to UC Davis faculty and staff working on programs to reduce energy consumption in lighting for buildings as well as learn about innovations in plug-in electric hybrid vehicles. UC Davis presenters included Alan Meier, Associate Director of the EEC; Billy Sanders, Interim Executive Director for the Energy Institute; Tom Turrentine and Dahlia Garas of the Plug-in Electric Hybrid Vehicle Research Center; and Konstantinos Papamichael, Associate Director for the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC). Wes Morgan lead a tour of CLTC.
Sustainable Design Key Component of Winning Proposal for 2008 Bank of America Low-Income Housing Challenge
Energy Efficiency Center Emerging Venture Analyst, Amy Barr, along with fellow UC Davis MBA students, 
Elizabeth Collett, Cassie Hilder, J-E Paino and Michael Alcheck, won the 2008 Bank of America (BofA) Low-Income Housing Challenge. The BofA Challenge began in 1992 as a regional competition for undergraduate and graduate student teams who design proposals for development of affordable housing. The competition this year included a category for green building design and concepts. Project proposals were judged by local professionals from a variety of fields within the housing industry, including project managers from non-profit developers, advocacy and trade organizations, tax-credit investors, lenders and architects. The proposal from the UC Davis team (SEED, Sustainable, Economical, Equitable Development Group), was entitled The Gateway at 7th & H Street and targets low-income, single room occupancy units in downtown Sacramento near 7th and H Street. Key goals of the proposal were sustainability in design and operation (a LEED silver certifiable building), creation of a supportive environment, and encouragement of community integration. This is the first year that UC Davis has won this competition.
Energy Efficiency Project Selected for UC Davis Sustainability Grant
UC Davis Campus Computing Energy Solutions was one of seven projects selected and will receive $1,220 from the UC Davis Sustainability Grant Program to work in collaboration with Facilities Management, campus IT services, and faculty and staff members to measure, strategize, and implement methods for reducing energy consumption by campus computers and peripherals. Possible solutions include: encouraging the campus community to adjust inefficient settings or "incentivizing" energy efficient purchasing. The winning team, comprised of Tracy Hsieh, an undergraduate in Sustainable Design; Siva Gunda, an EEC Emerging Venture Analyst (EVA) and PhD student in Mechanical Engineering; Tai Stillwater, an EEC EVA and PhD in Transportation Technology & Policy Studies; and Dana Rowan, an M.S. student in Agricultural and Resource Economics and a PhD student in Ecology with an Environmental Science and Policy Emphasis, will focus their efforts on four complementary strategies, including raising awareness about computing-related energy waste, and teaching IT professionals and others in the campus community to use power meters in order to foster a culture of continual improvement in efficiency. The team will distribute power meters for general use, and will develop "Best Practice" guidelines for energy settings and for use at campus computer centers and labs. Working with staff at UC Davis Facilities Management and IT professionals, they will also develop a computing purchasing program to overcome current institutional barriers to making energy efficient IT purchases. The winning team anticipates achieving a substantial energy savings and is excited about contributing to UC Davis' sustainability goals.
World Bank Funds Energy Efficiency Center "Lighting the Way" Project
The UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center was one of 16 applicants selected to receive $200,000 in seed funding from the World Bank's Lighting Africa Development Marketplace Grant Competition. Center Emerging Venture Analyst, Kurt Kornbluth, will lead the Lighting the Way, Zambia project which seek to design and distribute inexpensive, modular white LED lighting system that can displace or supplement kerosene lighting in Sub-Saharan Africa through existing market-based mechanisms. Over 500 participants took part in the Lighting Africa 2008 conference, during which the sixteen organizations were selected as winners.
UC Davis Launches the "Smart Energy" Initiative on Campus
Anyone can see the lights from I-80. The south entry parking lots and garage are all a glow and it is 3:00 A.M.! No one is around. Yet, UC Davis is paying the price, an estimated annual electric bill of $400,000 at 7 cents for the core campus. For two years, the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) and Facilities Management have been working on various technologies to reduce that bill. This year along with the Energy Efficiency Center (EEC), they have launched the "Smart Energy Initiative," an effort to reduce garage and parking lot lighting by between 30-50%. The campus benefits are threefold: reduction of maintenance costs, enhancement of security, and less consumption of 
electricity. "Garages and parking lots are particularly juicy," says Michael Siminovitch, Director of the CLTC, "Juicy" in terms of energy use and the potential for savings, without sacrificing safety. For complete story, click here.
To inaugerate this effort, on March 17, 2008, top UC Davis administrators joined faculty and staff from the CLTC, Facilities Management, and the Energy Efficiency Center. Since 2007, CLTC has been working with industry partners to develop prototypes that integrate bi-level lighting controls on metal halide, fluorescent, and LED fixtures. The “Smart Lighting” technology allows a lower level of light to be maintained during periods of zero occupancy. Occupancy sensors switch lights to full capacity upon detection of someone entering the structure or parking lot. The bi-level control will enhance security as well as reduce energy consumption by approximately 50%. The Mondavi Administrative Parking Lot (shown to right) is the first of six demonstration sites selected for this initiative. For more information about EEC programs and projects in energy efficient buildings, please click here.
Center Receives $1.1 Million
Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and Wal-Mart join the University of California, Davis' Energy Efficiency Center as Leadership Sponsors, donating a combined $1.1 million dollars. "This support is essential to the Energy Efficiency Center's efforts to bring new technologies out of inventors' garages and research labs and into the market, where they can make real and lasting changes," said Center Founding Director Andrew Harg
adon, a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
With sponsorship, representatives of these companies were asked to serve on the Energy Efficiency Center's Board of Advisers.
John McDonald, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Chevron Corporation; Larry Kellerman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and President, Cogentrix Energy Inc; and Charles Zimmerman, Vice President of Prototype & New Format Development, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. join the Center.
Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and Wal-Mart join Founding Sponsor (CalCEF) and Leadership Sponsors (Edison International, and Pacific Gas and Electric, Sempra Energy).
For UC Davis media coverage, please click here.
UC Davis Licenses Energy-Efficient Lighting Technology
Energy Efficiency Center affiliate, the California Lighting Technology Center, has signed agreements to license new daylight 
harvesting technology with CLTC affiliates Watt Stopper/Legrand and Axis Technologies. These co-exclusive license agreements will commercialize technologies developed by the CLTC utilizing daylight harvesting and have tremendous potential to reduce both energy costs and demand for electricity at peak times.
"We see these innovations increasing the reliability and decreasing the cost of daylight harvesting systems," said Konstantinos Papamichael, professor of design at UC Davis and associate director of the CLTC.
Currently, daylight harvesting systems are set up by a technical expert who makes adjustments specific to the space and location. Even small changes in the lit space -- rearranging furniture, for example -- can change the reflective properties of the space and require expensive, expert adjustments.
For information on other energy efficiency initiatives in buildings, please click here.
Additional media coverage about this technology can be found at the following links: Bizjournal article, UC Davis Press, Sacramento Bee article, Mercury News article