Zero Net Energy Pilot for Local Educational Agencies and Community Colleges

Construction, Design, Operations, Retrofits, Zero Energy

Proposition 39, the California Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2012 (Prop 39), provided up to $1.7 billion over five years for schools to improve energy efficiency and increase the use of clean energy in public schools and community colleges. The Investor Owned Utility (IOU) Prop 39 Zero Net Energy (ZNE) Schools Retrofit Pilot (IOU Pilot) was developed to assist schools and community colleges in retrofitting existing facilities to ZNE by leveraging Prop 39 funding. The IOU Pilot had three main goals: 1. Demonstrate the technical feasibility of ZNE retrofits in public K-14 schools statewide through 13-18 geographically and demographically diverse projects, 2. Disseminate lessons learned regarding the technical design process and the implementation process broadly throughout the state through training events, recognition awards, and publications, and 3. Explore the feasibility of a larger-scale Program for future years. This report summarizes all the implementation processes and results at twelve sites, summarizes the case studies, training, outreach and recognition efforts to provide insights into the costs, design and construction approaches, and operational needs to successfully achieve ZNE in schools, and identifies challenges and provides lessons learned and recommendations for achieving cost effective implementations based on savings alone for development of a full-scale program.

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