Clean Energy at California's U.S. Postal Service Facilities

In 2006, Chevron Energy Solutions (CES), a Chevron subsidiary, completed major energy efficiency and clean power projects for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) at its Embarcadero postal center in San Francisco and its processing and distribution centers in Oakland and San Francisco.

CES is working in partnership with the USPS at mail facilities throughout California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. By reducing energy consumption through increased energy efficiency and using alternative, clean energy sources, the USPS expects to save more than $2 million per year in energy costs in Northern California alone.

In San Francisco, improvements to the facilities included a unique hybrid alternative power plant – combining two solar photovoltaic technologies and hydrogen fuel cell generation – as well as energy-efficient lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades.

At a ceremony marking the completion of the upgrades, participants noted the significant benefits of these efforts. These included lowering total annual electricity purchases by $1.2 million, or 10 million kilowatt hours – a 46 percent reduction – and lowering the amount of energy needed for heating. In total, these improvements reduce local electric utility emissions by about 6,600 tons of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of planting about 1,860 acres of trees.

At the Oakland facility, CES installed a 910-kilowatt solar power system – spanning a rooftop area nearly the size of two football fields – and other upgrades, including improved lighting for employee work areas, motion sensors, an energy management system, and other high-efficiency equipment for heating, cooling, ventilation, air compression and water conservation. These measures are lowering the facility's yearly power demand by almost 11 million kilowatt hours, resulting in 7,400 fewer tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually – the same as would be absorbed by planting more than 2,000 acres of trees.