Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 63.09
Liaison Elida Erickson
Submission Date April 17, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of California, Santa Cruz
OP-8: Building Energy Consumption

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.14 / 6.00 Sarah Gilchrest
Energy Analyst
Physical Plant
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Total building energy consumption, all sources (transportation fuels excluded):
Performance Year Baseline Year
Total building energy consumption 359,916 MMBtu 507,957 MMBtu

Purchased electricity and steam:
Performance Year Baseline Year
Grid-purchased electricity 153,608 MMBtu 114,853 MMBtu
District steam/hot water 0 MMBtu 0 MMBtu

Gross floor area of building space::
Performance Year Baseline Year
Gross floor area 5,912,360 Gross square feet 5,434,555 Gross square feet

Floor area of energy intensive space, performance year::
Floor Area
Laboratory space 1,230,101 Square feet
Healthcare space 35,034 Square feet
Other energy intensive space

Degree days, performance year (base 65 °F)::
Degree days (see help icon above)
Heating degree days 1,947
Cooling degree days 212

Source-site ratios::
Source-Site Ratio (see help icon above)
Grid-purchased electricity 3.14
District steam/hot water 1.20

Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or 3-year periods)::
Start Date End Date
Performance Year Jan. 1, 2014 Dec. 31, 2014
Baseline Year Jan. 1, 2006 Dec. 31, 2006

A brief description of when and why the building energy consumption baseline was adopted:

2006 is the first year we have complete energy data.


A brief description of any building temperature standards employed by the institution:

Campus building management systems in several office, lab, and auditorium spaces have different set points and base delivery of conditioned air on occupancy schedules. These schedules are modified for holidays, campus closures, and can be managed or changed at any time with a web-based tool called Tridium, from anywhere with internet access. Our Tridium tool allows us to access and control the set points, sequence of operations, and graphics for most heating and cooling systems on campus.


A brief description of any light emitting diode (LED) lighting employed by the institution:

UCSC has LED lights in a few locations across campus already, including but not limited to parts of McHenry Library, Engineering 2, and in various offices and other small spaces. Also, major LED conversions are a part of current PG&E Strategic Energy Partnership projects at the Cogeneration Plant, Engineering 2, Physical Sciences Building and other smaller scale projects across campus.

In addition to internal LEDs, a campus-wide conversion of street lights and wall packs to LED has been underway over the last two years, and has been successful in converting a large percentage of such fixtures.


A brief description of any occupancy and/or vacancy sensors employed by the institution:

UCSC has installed occupancy sensors throughout campus as a part of a campus-wide energy efficiency plan.

UC Policy on Sustainability requires that the campus' new projects exceed CA Title 24's energy efficiency standards by 20%. Title 24 is already relatively stringent so exceeding these standards by 20% means that new projects' lighting design involves a combination of motion sensors, daylight sensors, efficient lamps, and low voltage lighting controls to program the lighting schedule. Installation at existing buildings is subject to budgetary constraint.


A brief description of any passive solar heating employed by the institution:
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A brief description of any ground-source heat pumps employed by the institution:
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A brief description of any cogeneration technologies employed by the institution:

UCSC is installing a brand new 4.4 MW gas turbine cogen unit which will come online this summer (2015). It will replace the old 2.6 MW, dual-fueled (natural gas and diesel), internal combustion engine. It was retired in December of 2013. This engine supplies electricity and heating for hot water to the campus core facilities; primarily research facilities with power security needs.


A brief description of any building recommissioning or retrofit program employed by the institution:

As part of our partnership with PG&E, we are incentivized on annual therm and kWh savings resulting from both retrofit and Monitoring Based Commissioning projects (MBCxs). To maximize savings, we use analytic software (SkySpark) that combs data from our BMS, and local data logging to inform projects, and track them to ensure the persistence of any savings realized from a project. Our energy and BMS team attends regular courses aimed at design for lighting, HVAC, and Commissioning projects through PG&E and other institutions so that the knowledge to maintain a level of energy reduction, and apply it elsewhere on campus, stays with the campus even after we complete successive projects.


A brief description of any energy metering and management systems employed by the institution:

UCSC utilizes a web-based energy management system (EMS) throughout most buildings on campus. The EMS is a Tridium Niagara AX Supervisor with building level JACE controllers. The system has a server that trends all energy and data points in each building every 5-15 minutes, allowing us to track energy consumption, temperature (heating, chilled, and condensing water; air, both indoor and outdoor), volume flow, and other important data.

The system tracks electricity data associated with the boiler, chiller, and other HVAC equipment, but does not yet include lighting and plug load. However, a few pilot panels that will enable the Tridium Supervisor to control building lighting systems are in progress, and the campus has a plan to eventually move all building systems, lighting or otherwise, onto this management system.


A brief description of the institution's program to replace energy-consuming appliances, equipment and systems with high efficiency alternatives:

UCSC students have started both Green Labs and Green Office certification programs for on-campus buildings. Their program includes providing equipment recommendations on equipment replacement, both specific to the area being audited based on need, and general recommendations for future reference by building occupants. A grant has recently been approved by the Green Labs program to fund incentives or internal rebates to areas that purchase the recommended appliances and equipment. Another grant from the building manager of a restaurant on campus has been approved to fund the purchase of energy efficient kitchen appliances, owned and operated by the campus staff as opposed to the vendor on the contract at the location. This project is aimed at aligning this location with other areas of dining that the campus operates internally, so that prescriptive goals for energy efficiency can be under the control of on-campus staff, and not subject to inefficient energy consumption by third party vendors.

For areas that are more difficult to fund projects through the state partnership program, a Green Revolving Loan Fund is in program design, and will facilitate the purchase of equipment by any organization on campus.


A brief description of any energy-efficient landscape design initiatives employed by the institution:

Grounds at UCSC are monitored internally by a dedicated crew. The Grounds department utilized water flow software with control valves to monitor flow being irrigated on every plot of landscape, field, or other irrigated areas. The amount of flow delivered to an area will be adjusted to account for humidity, precipitation, and temperature, to avoid over-watering.


A brief description of any vending machine sensors, lightless machines, or LED-lit machines employed by the institution:

Vending Mizers were installed in all vending machines, snack machines, and cooler machines on campus through the implementation of our strategic energy plan. The UCSC Procurement Department has also negotiated that all future vendors will have Vending Mizers installed on all machines.


A brief description of other energy conservation and efficiency initiatives employed by the institution:

The UCSC Carbon Fund, a student-funded initiative to fund carbon emission reduction projects, has been operating since 2013. It funds up to $100,000/year in projects that prove to have scope 1 or 2 emission reductions in both the on-campus and off-campus communities. Both projects with actual savings, and that are comprised of behavioral change or research for future projects that have potential emission reductions,


The website URL where information about the institution’s energy conservation and efficiency initiatives is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Square footage is Maintained Gross Square Footage (MGSF).
Energy consumption discrepancy between performance and baseline year is because of the cogen shutdown in 2014.

Scope of energy consumption includes main campus, lower campus, 2300 Delaware and Long Marine Lab


Square footage is Maintained Gross Square Footage (MGSF).
Energy consumption discrepancy between performance and baseline year is because of the cogen shutdown in 2014.

Scope of energy consumption includes main campus, lower campus, 2300 Delaware and Long Marine Lab

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.