The University of California, Davis, West Village, the nation’s largest planned zero net energy community, racks up an impressive list of achievements in its initial year of review. The first formal analysis of West Village shows that even in its initial phases, it is well on the way to the ultimate goal of operating as a ZNE community.
The report released today from UC Davis, and its partner West Village Community Partnership LLC, outlines major milestones including West Village producing 87 percent of the energy it consumed in a one-year period — well in advance of the project’s full completion.
“West Village is what a sustainable energy future looks like for California and the rest of the world,” said Ralph Cavanagh, Energy Program co-director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Its commitment to comprehensive evaluations like this one is an important part of the good example that the community is setting for the rest of us.” Cavanagh, a renowned authority on energy policy and conservation, is also vice chairman of California Clean Energy Fund and member of the National Commission on Energy Policy.
WVCP engaged energy consulting firm Davis Energy Group to evaluate the project’s energy consumption and production over a 12-month period from March 2012 to February 2013. The report also highlights the many “firsts” West Village can claim including Sacramento City College Davis Center, the first community college center built on a University of California campus.
The prototype University Hub, a new concept aimed at fostering better collaboration among research groups and accelerating the transfer of university inventions from the laboratory to the marketplace, also calls West Village home. The Energy and Transportation Hub located in the community now plays host to several research centers and creates a “living laboratory” to develop energy and transportation technologies.
“This report is a summary of tremendous accomplishments and provides a roadmap to enhanced sustainability,” said Sid England, assistant vice chancellor for environmental stewardship and sustainability. “West Village is a grand experiment with ambitious goals and we look forward to working closely with our partners to reach the pinnacle of energy efficiency.”
While West Village continues to garner international recognition, most recently with the 2013 Urban Land Institute Global Award of Excellence, several other research investigations are under way at the site. The Honda House, a high-tech sustainable home filled with a smart-grid Honda Energy Management System, will demonstrate an innovative approach to meeting the state’s goal of requiring all new residential construction to be ZNE by 2020.
The second annual report, to be published in winter 2015, will highlight new and related advances including the opening of the Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester offsite at the former UC Davis landfill, and the beginning of WVCP’s energy use and efficiency educational program for residents of West Village.

A new world record was recently set when Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary, produced a solar cell capable of converting 38.8 percent of solar energy into electricity, more than any other ground-based solar cell not using concentrated sunlight.
The record was verified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. This new record beats the company’s own previous world record by 1 percent.
While the cost of such a high efficiency cell is likely in the hundreds of dollars, it does show an advancement in solar cell manufacturing technology—technology that trickles down to other companies, and on to consumers.

We are excited at Solar Components because our personal solar chargers use some of the highest efficiency solar cells available on the market today. Our monocrystalline cells are capable of collecting sunlight at an efficiency approaching 20 percent, much higher than the 8-10 percent efficiencies seen on competing products that utilize inferior ‘thin-film’ solar cells.
In fact, our product is even featured as an example of a high efficiency solar product on Wikipedia. Click here to read the Wikipedia page.

694 megawatts of new electrical generating capacity was added last month, of which, 99.3% comes from renewable sources including 72.1% from solar energy. The remaining 5 megawatts came from oil.
Twelve new solar energy generation units were put in place to produce 504 megawatts of generating capacity, followed by four biomass units generating 124 megawatts and two wind energy generation units adding 66 megawatts to the grid.
So what does this mean for solar energy? It means we as a society are taking a more serious look at how beneficial harnessing power from the sun can be and how it can help us move away from non-renewable sources we’ve been dependent on for years.
Now not all of us have the financial resources to install a solar array on our homes or in our backyards but we can help do our part by charging our personal electronic items with renewable energy. The JOOS Orange is one way to cut our ties with non-renewables and start doing our part to charge “off-the-grid.”
Solar Components, the makers of the JOOS Orange are helping to make the switch even easier this holiday season by offering a special promotion on a bundle package consisting of the JOOS Orange, Reflector Kit, and Carrying Case. The bundle sells for $175 and is available exclusively at SolarJOOS.com.