Power to the Tower: Central Utility Plant Expansion prepares UC Davis Health for clean-energy future

As UC Davis Health expands to meet greater healthcare needs, its infrastructure must be equally forward-looking. A modern academic medical center requires a resilient, future-ready backbone capable of supporting advanced facilities. That backbone is the Central Utility Plant Expansion (CUPx)—a new engine infrastructure which will provide the capacity, reliability and clean-energy foundation essential to sustain the California Tower and prepare the campus for the future.

At its essence, CUPx is an investment in readiness. While the project will immediately support the California Tower, its broader purpose is to prepare the entire Sacramento campus for a future defined by electrification, renewable power and long-term operational resilience.

Expanding California Tower infrastructure

As the last, and largest, build in UC Davis Health’s Vision 2030 expansion, the California Tower will introduce an unprecedented demand on campus utilities. CUPx ensures that UC Davis Health is ready for this challenge by expanding both the electrical capacity and redundancy necessary for 24/7 clinical operations.

Delivering “Power to the Tower” is not just a phrase; it is reflected in every conduit, pipe and vault placed into the ground.

CUPx will construct nearly one mile of new underground electrical and hydronic piping to establish dual utility pathways that will keep essential hospital spaces running even during maintenance activities or unexpected outages. This new distribution spine ensures that critical areas—such as surgical suites, diagnostic imaging, intensive care units and support functions—receive uninterrupted service, regardless of the circumstances.

Supporting the teams keeping the campus running

 As utility systems grow more advanced, so does the need for enhanced operational support. CUPx includes a new two-story expansion dedicated to Plant Operations and Maintenance (PO&M). This facility offers a modernized workspace, enhanced access to critical equipment and the necessary tools to maintain the increasingly complex utility infrastructure across the health system. By investing in the people who operate and maintain these systems, UC Davis Health is strengthening the human side of campus resilience, ensuring that expertise, response capability and operational readiness evolve in tandem with the infrastructure itself.

New SMUD electrical backbone for an electrified future

Another transformative aspect of CUPx is the creation of a new 2.5-mile SMUD electrical feed, which will deliver a dedicated electrical feed to the campus. This new service is sourced through SMUD’s Greenergy® program and comes directly from renewable resources such as solar and wind. The increased capacity dramatically improves reliability, while positioning UC Davis Health to transition more of its heating, cooling and operational systems to electricity over time.

This new electrical backbone represents a critical step toward campus decarbonization and UC Davis Health’s sustainable future. It reduces dependence on combustion-based systems as the campus advances with new emerging technologies, such as heat recovery and electric-driven chillers and prepares the campus for future electrification phases that will unfold over the coming decades. As this new feed comes online, UC Davis Health will become one of SMUD’s largest clean-energy customers—an important milestone in the health system’s commitment to sustainability.

Powering the next era of UC Davis Health

While CUPx focuses on immediate needs, it is intentionally structured to support future innovations. The systems installed today are designed to accommodate thermal energy storage, electrified heating strategies and next-generation cooling equipment that will be integrated in later phases. By preparing this foundation now, the campus can adopt future technologies more easily and avoid costly disruptions during later construction.

By strengthening the infrastructure needed for the California Tower and creating the electrical capacity required for an electrified future, CUPx delivers far more than “Power to the Tower.” It delivers power to the entire campus, ensuring UC Davis Health is prepared for the next generation of healthcare delivery and environmental stewardship.

For campus construction updates, please visit Construction News & Updates | Vision 2030.