• The UC Davis Health System central plant is a co-generation facility, meaning that it uses a single source of fuel to produce a number of different forms of energy: Natural gas powers a turbine that generates electricity. Heat emitted by the turbine is captured and used to produce steam, which supplies heating and cooling for the medical center campus.
  
  
• The $68.4 million plant is capable of producing 26 megawatts of power at any given time and was designed to provide for all of the central campus' power needs for the next two or three decades.
  
  
• Because the medical center currently needs only about half of the electricity that its power plant is capable of producing, the medical center makes its surplus power available to other consumers in the state of California.
  
  
• Electricity sales to the Independent System Operator, California's statewide energy distributor, have helped offset the medical center's rising utility costs - especially the increased cost of natural gas.
  
  
• The price at which the medical center sells its surplus electricity fluctuates and is determined by the ISO.
  
  
• The medical center's power plant began generating electricity in July 1998. It replaced an old boiler plant, built circa 1920, which had become ineffective at meeting the medical center's heating and cooling needs.
  
  
• The objective in building the power plant was to ensure a reliable source of quality power to support our patient care and medical research activities. The central plant, which provides not only electrical power, but also the campus's heating and cooling needs, has proved to be the best, most efficient way to meet the medical center's need for reliable power.
  
  
• All hospitals are required to have back-up sources of power to ensure that essential functions are fully operable during a crisis.
  
  
• UC Davis's agreement to sell power to the state went into effect in November 1999, and was the first such agreement between a public agency and the ISO.

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