Big Shift
Summary
At its March meeting, the University of California Board of Regents approved a $55 million component of UC Davis’ “Big Shift,” a multi-year, campus-spanning effort to replace the natural-gas-powered steam heating system with an electric-powered hot-water network.
With Phase One finished in 2023 and the next phase planned completion in 2028, the Big Shift project will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions in campus operations by roughly 40 percent and generate approximately $3.15 million in annual utility savings. When the full project is built out, those numbers can reach 80 percent and $8 million respectively.
Joshua Morejohn, executive director of Utilities and Engineering at UC Davis Facilities Management explained that these savings come from a “deliberate decision to redesign the campus energy system rather than rebuild the old one.”
Central to the newly approved component, is construction of a 2.25-million-gallon hot-water Thermal Energy Storage, or TES, tank, essentially a giant thermal battery for storing heat.
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