New Sustainable Communities Champions Named

Two local universities have been named Sustainable Communities Champions by San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). During “Earth Month,” SDG&E’s Sustainable Communities program recognized California State University San Marcos and UC San Diego for their new projects that showcase sustainable building and renewable energy.

California State University, San Marcos hosts an SDG&E-owned 37 kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof of their University Police Building helping to supply locally generated renewable energy to the campus. The system’s environmental benefits are equivalent to removing nearly 78,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year or the same as planting more than 1,100 trees annually.

UC San Diego’s new Structural and Materials Engineering Building features an SDG&E-owned 120kW PV system and is equipped with additional technologies that provide students and researchers insight into how PV works and PV performance.  This is the second Sustainable Communities Champion Award given to UC San Diego. The first one was for Charles David Keeling Apartments at Revelle College and a third project, Marine Ecosystem Sensing, Observation and Modeling Laboratory, part of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will receive this award in June.

First fuel cell celebrated

SDG&E also awarded J&D Labs with a Sustainable Communities Champion award to celebrate the first anniversary of the Sustainable Communities Program’s first and only fuel cell at a customer site. The fuel cell helped save J&D Labs almost $40,000 on their gas bill last year.

About SDG&E’s Sustainable Communities Program

SDG&E’s Sustainable Communities Program advances and promotes the use of clean energy generation technologies within the San Diego region. The program strategically integrates utility-owned generation systems, such as photovoltaics and advanced energy storage with sustainable building projects to provide energy to the grid. All these systems are maintained, and operated by SDG&E. To date, these 30 plus projects contribute a combined total of over 4 megawatts (MW) of locally generated, renewable power to the community.