The State College of New York at Albany is starting a $30 million decarbonization challenge that can allow it to close down its gas-fired boilers throughout the summer season months, it introduced earlier this month.
The challenge will set up a high-efficiency electrical centrifugal chiller and a warmth restoration chiller, each linked to a brand new geothermal effectively subject consisting of between 90 and 135 wells in a campus car parking zone. The chillers will exchange two gas-fired absorption chillers within the campus’ Nineteen Sixties-era central energy plant, the college says. As well as, the challenge will modify home sizzling water methods in over 25 buildings and set up new low-temperature sizzling water piping within the campus athletic services.
The geothermal warmth restoration chiller will be capable of meet all the campus cooling, heating and home sizzling water hundreds throughout the summer season months, the college says. The transfer is projected to scale back the college’s annual fossil gas consumption by 16%, in accordance with Indu, the power officer on the College at Albany.
The pipes all through the campus that ship sizzling water can create technical issues when transitioning to geothermal or different non-combustion heating applied sciences due to their small diameter, Indu mentioned.
With these pipes, “You can not make steam or high-temperature sizzling water with out burning some kind of fossil gas,” Indu mentioned.
This limitation is why the college will solely be capable of flip off its gas-fired boilers throughout the summer season months. “Because the heating load begins to extend, our pipe sizes are too small to warmth the campus with simply 180-degree [Fahrenheit] water,” she mentioned.
Subsequent steps
To beat the constraints of current pipes, the college is evaluating the development of a satellite tv for pc power hub: a completely electrified geothermal warmth restoration plant on the opposite aspect of campus, nearer to the place main hundreds like residential buildings and the College at Albany’s proposed $250 million well being innovation & expertise constructing will likely be positioned, in accordance with Indu.
The satellite tv for pc power hub and related geothermal wells would assist warmth and funky 700,000 sq. toes of adjoining buildings along with the well being tech constructing, the college says. Then, the college will construct new pipe networks and electrify the present plant utilizing the present piping infrastructure to “feed as a lot of the campus as we will whereas that different plant begins to select up some slack from buildings on the opposite finish,” Indu mentioned.
“Finally, these two networks will join and supply redundancy for one another. However that [plan] will assist us transfer to that with out spending an unlimited sum of money on pipes,” Indu mentioned. The brand new plant and geothermal wells are anticipated to scale back the campus’ fossil gas consumption by a further 16%, in accordance with the college’s launch.
The present challenge and anticipated subsequent steps are a part of the SUNY system’s push to decarbonize throughout the state as New York works to realize an 85% discount in greenhouse fuel emissions by 2050, the college mentioned.
Seeing the entire image
Life cycle planning and grasp planning are essential to implementing power effectivity tasks and stopping hiccups within the course of, in accordance with Indu.
“Campuses, particularly … are complicated methods,” Indu mentioned. “You possibly can’t simply have a look at one element and see what’s the most effective for this constructing or this particular system. You need to have a look at campus as an entire. If I make this modification right here, how does this affect different issues on campus?”
To that finish, UAlbany has developed a Clear Power Grasp Plan to decarbonize its downtown campus, which it’s at present in search of state funding to help.
“Capital price is often the factor that stops folks from implementing these tasks. As a result of changing chillers [like for like] might be going to be manner cheaper [up front], virtually half the price of doing this warmth restoration channel, the effectively fields and all of that,” Indu mentioned.
Nonetheless, whereas a effectively subject is pricey, it has a life cycle of fifty to 60 years, in contrast with a cooling tower that will solely have a lifetime of 20 to 25 years, Indu mentioned. “You possibly can simply use your annual financial savings. You need to have a look at the life cycle price of the system and evaluate it, after which have a look at the web current worth over the lifetime of the system,” she mentioned.