UC Davis will receive a federal grant of $2.5 million through the Department of Energy to create an innovative waste-to-energy project for its West Village housing community.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said both UC Davis West Village and other communities will benefit from the renewable energy project.

“The West Village project will immediately reduce our campus’s environmental impact while showing us the best way to build similar projects in other places. Every day, UC Davis is advancing our commitment to sustainability and clean energy solutions," Katehi said.

About 200 acres in all, UC Davis West Village will be located on campus land west of Highway 113 and south of Russell Boulevard. The community is designed to include affordable homes for faculty and staff and apartment-style housing for students with first occupancy scheduled for fall 2011.

How the funds will be used

The DOE federal funding will go toward helping UC Davis create an onsite waste-to-energy system—part of the West Village Smart Grid Demonstration Project—that will generate power from a fuel cell. The fuel cell will be fed by gases collected from campus waste, such as food scraps and landscape trimmings. This system, used with other energy-saving technologies, aims to provide increased power reliability and quality at an affordable cost to residents. Benefits include reductions in both peak demand on the energy grid and greenhouse gas emissions.

The grant is one of five made nationally for a total of $20.5 million in funding by the Department of Energy, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.