Energy Use at CU

Currently CU Boulder students are purchasing 8.8 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind (green tags) to offset 100% of the electricity used in the three student run buildings (University Memorial Center, Recreation Center and Wardenburg Health Center). There is also a 7.5 kW solar photovoltaic system on the UMC which will produce roughly 12,500 kWh of electricity each year. There are small solar panels located around campus on several bus stops, powering the Next Bus System. However, most of campus electricity comes from the campus cogeneration power plant, which uses natural gas to produce electricity and steam (for heating and cooling). Campus also purchases energy from Xcel Energy, the local utility. The majority of electricity from Xcel is produced by using coal (70%) with the remainder coming largely from natural gas. In the fall of 2004, the Recreation Center received a new micro-turbine, which will heat the diving pool and the lap pool. The microturbine uses natural gas, but is much more efficient than even the co-generation plant.

The pie chart shows the percentage of electricity coming from each source.

*Note: the wind purchase was made through green tags, which offsets electricity use on campus. Therefore, CU still needs to produce the same amount of electricity from Xcel and the CoGen plant. However, in order to get a sense of how much the offset is worth, without inflating actual electricity use, we subtracted 8.8 million kWh from the actual Co Gen numbers.

To learn more about Cogeneration, and the CU Power Plant click here.

To learn more about the wind and solar power at CU, click here.

To learn more about the microturbine click here.

For trends in Energy Use see the Generation Green page.