The energy need for heating and cooling, lighting, and powering the more than 25 million square feet of UCLA building space is substantial; and the network of building controls deployed to monitor, assess, and mitigate energy waste is vast and complex. Energy Services manages the energy demands and leverages building control networks to provide UCLA’s thermal and electrical needs as efficiently and economically as possible, while minimizing environmental impact.
Energy System Facility
The campus Energy System Facility provides heating and cooling to over 60 buildings on campus. It produces, annually:
- Over 250 gigawatt hours of electricity
- 730 billion BTUs of heating energy in the form of steam
- 870 billion BTUs of air conditioning
- 72 million cooling ton-hours as recirculating “chilled water” for cooling and air conditioning
The Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system is located under La Kretz Hall. The system allows production and storage of chilled water at night when energy cost and cooling demand is low, then supplies the previously stored chilled water to buildings during the day when the cost of electricity and cooling demand is high. Shifting the chilling production from the peak daytime hours to off-hours reduces the cost of air conditioning at UCLA by more a half million dollars annually.
Fuel Procurement and Management
Energy Services procures and manages the delivery of the fuels required to run the plant, working with multiple fuel sources to ensure a reliable supply of fuel at competitive market prices. The plant also burns methane gas recovered from the natural process of decomposition at the closed and capped landfill in the MountainGate Community a few miles from campus. This renewable fuel has been providing a significant portion of the campus energy requirement for over 25 years.
UCLA’s systems burn fuel using low-emission combustion equipment and process the exhaust gases using catalytic converters similar to those used in modern low-emission vehicles. When constructed, the cogeneration plant set the Southern California standard for “Best Available Control Technology” for minimizing the pollutants from large power generating facilities. Energy Services also maintains a reserve of low-sulfur fuel oil to provide vital energy needs in the event that normal fuel supply is interrupted.
9 campus buildings
participating in energy conservation programs
2,265 building lighting lamps
upgraded to LED
948 building energy-use meters
read on a monthly basis
Contact Information
Facilities Management
Phone: (310) 206-3856 | Fax: (310) 206-4223
Address
Facilities Management Building, Suite 3120
731 Charles E. Young Drive South
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Mail Code: 152608
