Alternative Energy: Through a joint venture with Southern California Edison, CSUSB built a 1.4 MW molten carbonate fuel cell power plant is integrated into the campus’s central plant. The fuel cell generates electricity to the utility grid with waste heat to the campus at no cost to the university…resulting in a $120,000 savings in gas expense.
Efficiency: The Central Plant is currently undergoing conversion to low temp hot water system. Tied to the Fuel Cell plant this conversion will allow us to utilize even more of the waste heat generated. The project should be complete in Fall/Winter 2017 and is estimated to save an additional 141,299 therms per year...enough to supply 353 Southern California homes for a year!
Solar: 3.5-acre photovoltaic ground-mounted solar array generates 750 kilowatts of electrical power...enough to power 108 houses a day!
Lighting: Exterior lighting has been retrofitted to LED fixtures with integrated adaptive, wireless controls.
Controls: The Utility Infrastructure Project (Phase III) is currently underway and will retrofit some of the campus utility meters to “smart meters”. Along with this an Energy Information System (EIS) is slated for FY 17/18 to improve our tracking and reporting of energy consumption across campus.