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Pilot Sites
Read more about our pilot sites across Europe and US
UC Berkeley Campus
Berkeley, US
The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant university and the first campus of the University of California system. The campus consists of 89 buildings with different uses. Its fourteen colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students. Berkeley is ranked among the world's top universities.
Existing infrastructure
The current natural gas cogeneration plant produces steam and electricity with 10% supplemental power from the grid. The cost of the current system is $31M/year and is increasing. The carbon emission is estimated to be about 140,000 tons CO2-eq./year. A new gas-powered cogeneration system, if adopted, is expected to reduce the emission to about 80,000 tons CO2-eq/year. However, the campus would like to reduce natural gas use significantly, making this not a viable option to meet the carbon target. The overall goal of this project is to determine whether geothermal is a viable decarbonization energy solution for UC Berkeley and to engage graduate and undergraduate students in the research and the subsequent decision-making and the real application of this technology on campus if it proves feasible.
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