As California's rolling blackouts made national headlines this winter, the campus just kept humming along.
Well, there was that Saturday morning brownout at FloMo that set off fire alarms in the dining hall. But Chris Christofferson, associate vice provost for facilities, told the Stanford Daily it was "just an equipment glitch."
That's because the University has its own power plant, the Cardinal Cogeneration Facility, which produces steam, chilled water and twice as much electrical power as the University typically needs. Commissioned in 1987, the plant is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric. Stanford purchases about 25 megawatts of power from the plant daily and distributes that through its own campus substation. The remainder is sold to Pacific Gas & Electric for local distribution through its power grid.
"Every kilowatt-hour the campus conserves during this critical period increases the amount of power we can provide to PG&E and the general public," University President John Hennessy wrote in a letter urging faculty, staff and students to conserve energy at work and in dormitories.
Christofferson says Stanford has the lowest energy consumption per square foot of any California research university, thanks to an extensive energy conservation plan launched in the late 1980s. Since 1996, the University has spent between $750,000 and $1 million each year on a retrofit program that has included installing more efficient electrical lights and fan systems in its buildings.
To continue to save energy, Hennessy and Christofferson urged people working and living on campus to turn off unnecessary lights, machines and personal heaters, especially at night: "If you are away from your computer for an extended period of time, and especially at the end of the day, please put the computer and monitor to sleep or turn them off."
With a low-watt lullaby?
