What’s Behind the Breaker? A Look at How Americans Label Their Electrical Panels
The electrical panel is the gateway to home electrification. Before adding a heat pump or EV charger, someone has to know which breaker controls what.
Turning Energy Challenges into Business Solutions
In the UC Davis Graduate School of Management’s Sustainable Energy Industry Immersion, Full-Time and Flex MBA students work with graduate students across disciplines to tackle real challenges posed by energy executives.
From Snapshots to Pathways: Optimizing Sector-Coupled Energy System Transitions Within Planetary Boundaries
Energy system optimization is a key tool for designing sector-coupled energy systems. But what should we optimize, over which time horizon, and how do we handle uncertainties inherent in planning decades ahead? This talk addresses these three questions. First, objectives: beyond cost, we integrate life cycle assessment to capture environmental impacts along supply chains. We […]
When the Heat Is On, the AC Stays On
UC Davis researchers analyzed smart-thermostat data from more than 10,000 homes and found that air conditioning use kept climbing even at temperatures up to 110 °F, so today’s AC systems aren’t too small to keep up.
UC Davis Energy News: September 2026
Welcome our new EGG students, 4 new research papers, and more!
Smart Controls Cut Peak Water Heating Costs for Low-Income Households, but Only When the Closet Has Room to Breathe
New research on heat pump water heaters was presented at the 2026 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings tested a smarter approach in real homes, and found it can meaningfully cut costs and emissions, but only where the equipment has room to work.
California Pilot Finds Cost, Not Product Availability, Is Still the Main Barrier to High-Efficiency Commercial Heat Pumps
Space heating and cooling account for 41% of total commercial energy use nationwide, and in California, most of it still runs through gas-fired rooftop units. New research presented at the 2026 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, based on two CalNEXT pilot incentive programs, finds that higher efficiency heat pump rooftop units, known as HP RTUs, are increasingly available on the market. The bigger obstacle to adoption is that current incentive levels don’t cover enough of the added cost.
California Dreamin’: Our Climate, Energy, and Transportation Policies
Friday, Sept. 18, 2026 | King Hall, Room 1001 | 9 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. | MCLE Credits Available | No Registration Fee | Livestreamed UC Davis School of Law is hosting an event to discuss climate, energy, transportation strategies and the regulatory and legal challenges to our decarbonization progress. Learn More
UC Davis Energy Systems: Powering a Sustainable Campus
10/02/2026 // 10:30am PDT Watch Video Download Slides Have you ever wondered how our buildings are heated and cooled? Did you know our campus has managed to grow in size while shrinking its energy use? Do you wonder how campus plans to slash its carbon emissions? Nico Fauchier-Magnan works in UCD Facilities Management : Energy […]
Factors Influencing Recent Trends in Retail Electricity Prices in the United States
U.S. retail electricity prices have largely tracked inflation in recent years, yet significant regional variations have left a few states facing steep price increases. Simultaneously, the power sector is undergoing a rapid transformation driven by wind and solar energy integration, extreme weather risks to and from grid infrastructure, and the return of load growth – […]