Utilities provides high quality, safe, reliable, and cost effective utility services for the campus. UC Davis operates on the scale of a small city; we own and maintain the infrastructure necessary to produce and deliver utility services to campus buildings. In addition to operating and maintaining campus utility systems, we plan system expansions to meet campus growth, purchase campus gas and electricity, meter and bill utility services, and promote resource conservation.

Utilities staff includes engineers, operators, mechanics, technicians, and administrative staff to serve the campus, with a 24/7/365 campus presence in critical areas.

The only utility services provided by external vendors are bulk gas and electricity supplies which are delivered to major campus interconnection points. Utilities then distributes these to campus buildings and power plants over campus utility systems. Our utility systems include water wells, pipelines, storage tanks, power plants, a wastewater treatment plant, a landfill, an electrical substation, power lines, and other related systems and equipment.

Utilities provides:

• Electricity
  
• Steam
  
• Chilled Water
  
• Natural Gas
  
• Domestic Water
  
• Sewerage
  
• Refuse Collection and Disposal
  

Additionally, the following services are offered

• CAD / GIS / Drafting
  
• Utility Billing
  

POWER OUTAGE UPDATE—OCTOBER 20, 2009

One of the large circuits at the campus substation tripped out earlier this morning at approximately 1:15am. This incident took down power to parts of the Vet Med complex, the Tercero dormitories, Watershed Sciences, Academic Surge, and the campus Dairy, and other facilities. Facilities crews responded and were able to reset the system within approximately 1 hour. The cause of the incident is still under investigation, but these sorts of failures have historically been caused by rodents or other animals that have somehow managed to get inside the high voltage cabinets. While, this was the third large campus outage in a week’s time, the incidents were not related, and none were caused by maintenance failures or operator errors. Facilities regrets impacts to the campus, and we are working hard to make all our utility systems more reliable.

POWER OUTAGE UPDATE--OCTOBER 14, 2009

Over 2.5" of rain fell on the campus on Tuesday, 10/13/09, accompanied by strong, gusty winds. Two electrical outages occurred during the height of the storm during the late afternoon at approximately 4 pm. A power pole on Hutchison in the west campus partially fell over, taking down power to most of the west campus. Campus Police re-routed traffic around the area until the line was secured. High voltage crews were then able to temporarily brace the pole and re-route power around the damaged section. The west campus was without power for about 1.5 hours. Several facilities located near the damaged pole were without power overnight, though a temporary generator provided service to the most critical needs.

A second, unrelated problem at the main campus substation took down electricity to a large portion of the central campus. One of the main transformers at the substation shut down when an internal fault was detected. Affected facilities included parts of the Vet Med complex, the Tercero dormitories, the traffic signals at La Rue and Hutchison, and the campus Dairy. The faulty transformed could not be re-energized, so Facilities crews had to manually transfer individual sub-circuits, located in various manholes, to enable a back-up circuit. Power was restored to the last of the buildings shortly before 7 pm.

To our knowledge, all emergency generators on affected buildings started without incident, except for one at the Primate Center. Crews responded and took corrective action at that location. Steam service to the Primate Center was briefly interrupted during this time.

To request service or report trouble calls, please use our online work order system, or call 752-1655.

Contact Information

David Phillips, Director of Utilities
(530) 754-8214,

Christopher Cioni, Associate Director Energy Services
(530) 752-4471,

Jeff Price, Assistant Superintendent GIS/CAD
(530) 752-8193,