Utah Clean Energy Unveils Climate Innovation Center as Epicenter of Local Climate Action

Utah Clean Energy and the community at large recently celebrated the grand opening of the Climate Innovation Center, a high-performance building and a hub for climate action. The facility raises the bar for buildings in Utah and beyond, highlighting the opportunity to modernize homes and buildings to cut emissions and combat climate change.

Located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, the Climate Innovation Center breathes new life into a once dilapidated 50-year-old building. The center showcases the potential of what homes and buildings can be — spaces that are not only comfortable and inviting, but also produce zero pollution. The building offers a space dedicated to learning, exploration and collaboration centered on climate solutions and improving local air quality — a place for the community to engage and create solutions to challenges.

The building meets some of the most rigorous high-performance standards. Standard buildings account for staggering amounts of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide, but the Climate Innovation Center is built to achieve “zero-energy” standards. This means it is so energy efficient that its onsite solar power, coupled with battery storage, will provide all of the building’s energy needs. Further, the building operates without natural gas, eliminating the need for fossil fuels.

The Climate Innovation Center is a recipient of a Rocky Mountain Power Blue Sky Grant, which supported the rooftop solar installation complete with a solar canopy and battery storage.

The center will serve as headquarters for Utah Clean Energy, as well as a dynamic community and education space for climate convenings, conversations and action. Throughout the renovation, Utah Clean Energy and its building partners have documented all of the steps to achieve zero energy and will utilize the building and a dedicated website as a teaching tool to make it easy for others to follow suit.

Okland Construction served as general contractor for the project.