The initiative of sustainability is driven from the top management of the university. The Energy Management Plan supplements the Strategic Theme of ‘Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change’ from the USP Strategic Plan 2013-2018. To implement the theme the Energy Efficiency Working Group (EEWG) has been formed. This group looks at trying to reduce the energy usage at USP through recommendation made from the LEVEL 3 Energy Audit that was carried out in March, 2014. As part of recommendations from the audit and the energy group USP has already started to roll out measures to mitigate the high energy uses. These measure are in the form of Energy Efficiency (EE) to lower the energy usage and using Renewable Energy (RE) to offset the use of fossil fuels wherever applicable. Also as part of greening USP the major goal of the energy team at USP is to try and calculate the current carbon footprint of USP. To date USP continues to work on Renewable Energy Research to look for viable, cost effective and efficiency sources of energy through its Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment. The University has a 45 kWp Grid connected PV at its lower campus, a 1.2 kWp standalone solar to cater for lighting needs in one of the student recreational areas (ITS7 Fale), a 1.2 kWp standalone solar –wind hybrid system to cater for lighting in one its student car parks and a 3 kWp Solar charging station to charge the battery operated vehicles used by the security guards. These systems not only help reduce energy usage from fossils but second as a training ground for upcoming RE experts.
