SAN FRANCISCO, California - 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.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, incorporated in California in 1905, is one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, the company is a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. There are approximately 20,000 employees who carry out Pacific Gas and Electric Company's primary business—the transmission and delivery of energy. The company provides natural gas and electric service to approximately 15 million people throughout a 70,000-square-mile service area in northern and central California. Pacific Gas and Electric Company and other utilities in the state are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission. The CPUC was created by the state Legislature in 1911. PG&E's Environmental Leadership Pacific Gas and Electric Company recognizes that the choices we make about the way we produce and deliver our products and serve our customers can have a direct impact on the environment. That is why we are committed to raising the bar on environmental stewardship—not only in the utility industry, but for U.S. industries, in general.

More from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)