ACT Expo 2017

Byron Washom
Director of Strategic Energy Initiatives
Center for Energy Research, University of California, San Diego


Byron Washom has served as director of strategic energy initiatives at the University of California San Diego since 2008. Previously he served as the chief executive officer of a technical due diligence firm in CleanTech while concurrently serving as senior international advisor to The World bank and being a four-time Rockefeller Foundation Grantee in renewable energy development. In 1984, Washom received an R&D100 for one of the 100 most outstanding innovations in the world based upon his entrepreneurial leadership that set eight technical world records for the conversion efficiency of sunlight- to-grid connection that remained unsurpassed for 24 years. Fast Company magazine named him to their June 2010 cover story “100 Most Innovative Persons in Business”. In 2013, he was retained to help design the microgrid for the Hawaiian Island of Lana`i which is 98% owned by Larry Ellison. Washom’s responsibilities at UCSD are to bring quantum innovations in zero and low carbon technologies to its 47 MW microgrid that self-generates 85% of its annual electrical load at a GHG emissions rate approximately 25% below that of the CA energy mix and a cost approximately half that of being direct access electricity customer. UCSD has recently deployed 3 MW of PV, 2.5 MW/5 MWH of energy storage, 2.8 MW of a directed biogas fuel cell with the world’s first fuel cell-absorption chiller, 2.5 million gallons of thermal energy storage, and 70 Level II and 7 DC Fast EV charging stations. UCSD’s microgrid is the world’s largest, most diversified portfolio of distributed energy resources.

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