Sonoma State University solar energy project receives support

source: solarbuzz 2002.10.9

Pacific Gas and Electric Company today will deliver a check for $106,279 to the president of
Sonoma State University as an incentive for incorporating energy efficient measures in its
remodeled library.

The school is also on track to receive another incentive check in the amount of $340,415 for the
installation of a photovoltaic system.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company believes the campus of Sonoma State University serves as a
model for other universities. The gutted and remodeled former Salazar Hall is now the most
energy-efficient building in the California State University system.

Its former library -- 120,000 square feet -- houses several classrooms, high tech laboratories and
the student services department. The building incorporates a unique system of low-energy
cooling, lighting controls, high efficiency windows and soon, a photovoltaic system.

The new additions will mean the building uses 42 percent less energy than required by state
building standards. And, it could mean nearly $450,000 in incentives from Pacific Gas and Electric
Company for both the energy efficiency additions and the solar panels.

The campus' planning and construction department says the project will pay back the investment
in mechanical equipment from the energy savings in five years or less. "There is not an
installation quite like this," says Keith Marchando, campus design engineer, "where all these forms
of energy conservation come together at this magnitude."

The project is so innovative, that engineers from Lawrence Livermore Lab in Berkeley will spend a
year studying the performance of the building with its mixture of low energy cooling, daylighting
schemes and solar panel array.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company has been working with the University's design team since the
fall of 1999.

"The energy partnership between Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Sonoma State University
is a long term one and we value the working relationship we have had with the campus," says
Beverly Alexander, vice president of energy efficiency programs. Since 1991, the university has
received more than $450,000 in energy efficient incentives from Pacific Gas and Electric Company
and has another project in the works for an additional $450,000.

In addition to the incentives, the university has saved 2.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity and
contributed 1392 peak kilowatt demand reduction. The school is receiving funds from two
different programs within Pacific Gas and Electric Company -- Savings By Design and the
Self-Generation Incentive Program.