A new $280 million community at UC Davis — already innovative for its plan to mix student and employee housing, retail space and a community college center — is breaking ground in more ways than one, thanks to an almost $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

The planners for West Village, under construction just west of the Davis campus, are now analyzing how to combine energy-saving measures with a sophisticated “smart grid” or network for generating, storing and distributing energy. The goal of the project is to create a great place to live and a “zero net energy” community with aggressive energy efficiency measures and on-site renewable resources to meet the community’s annual energy demand.

New ‘energy strategy’

“We are thrilled to be supporting this project with a university so committed to teaching, research and public service,” Karen Douglas, chairman of the energy commission, said at a news conference on Aug. 10. “West Village promises to lead us toward a new state of the art for community-based energy strategy.”

The university held the news conference to announce the ambitious project and mark the start of construction by first-phase developer West Village Community Partnership LCC.

Douglas said the energy commission is dedicated to improving the quality of life for Californians through energy research, development and demonstration projects. The $1,994,322 grant, made through the commission’s Public Interest Energy Research Program, will help the university to analyze and design energy technologies and the smart grid that will integrate them.

Faculty, staff housing

About 200 acres in all, the privately funded development is located on campus land west of Highway 113 and south of Russell Boulevard. With a village square at its heart, the community will include affordable homes for faculty and staff and apartment-style housing for students.

Planners estimate the baseline energy use for the first phase would be about 16,500 megawatt hours, including 11,100 for gas and 5,400 for electric. The new energy commission grant will fund analysis and design to minimize energy use by facilities and to offset demand with renewable power generated on site. One of the renewable energy technologies that will be evaluated is the biodigester developed at UC Davis.

Others include:

• energy-efficiency measures in building design (passive and active);
• demand response;
• distributed solar photovoltaic to create electricity from the sun;
• distributed solar thermal on homes to pre-heat water;
• biogas coupled with a fuel cell to generate electricity; and
• advanced energy storage using modern battery technologies.

Collaboration and financing

Chevron Energy Solutions, which is leading the energy team, has helped shape the energy strategy. Local energy consulting firm Davis Energy Group also is collaborating on the project.

West Village plans to sell homes at a starting price of about $400,000, below the market for comparable homes in Davis. The homes will be used as a major tool for recruiting and retaining top faculty and staff. Already, more than 1,500 people have expressed interest.

Home ownership

Homes will be allocated by lottery to four pools of employees, with 50 percent for recently recruited faculty and staff members and an additional 20 percent for employees with the lowest incomes.

More information: www.westvillage.ucdavis.edu.