San José State and the CSU system partner with PG&E to reduce demand for electricity and total electricity use by installing new lighting products.

New lighting products benefit the campus in several ways; not only do they save energy, the new lamps ("light bulbs") generally produce a more natural color of light which improves people's ability to see.

Energy efficient lamps save energy in two ways, they use less energy themselves and they produce less waste heat, thus lowering the energy required for cooling a building.

Fall 2006 - SJSU begins a new phase in energy conservation through improved lighting products. Under consideration are:

• More energy efficient outdoor lighting.
• Improved timers and photo cells to turn outdoor lights on and off at appropriate times.
• Occupancy sensors and timers inside buildings to turn lights on when needed and off when no one is there.
• Replacing high energy light fixtures with skylights and new, more efficient lamps.

Summer 2006 - Campus Village Housing is benefiting from a $30,000 rebate program which hired students to retrofit the residential units with compact fluorescent lamps.

Spring 2006 - The campus changed over 20,000 fluorescent lamps and ballasts in academic building classrooms, offices and hallways, replacing T-12 lamps with T-8s. This resulted in the total energy peak use dropping by about 15%. Contributing 80% of the cost, PG&E partnered with the CSU and San José State to fund this $1.8 million project.