In case you were wondering about the excavation in front of the Brighton Campus's Building 7, Monroe Community College, together with Monroe County, is constructing a cogeneration plant. This new plant will supply MCC with electricity and hot water for heating and domestic purposes. It will replace our current power sources: RG&E for electricity and the County’s Iola Powerhouse for heating steam. The Iola Powerhouse, which was built prior to 1925, utilizes fossil fuels (coal, oil) which have become a problem for the environment. The new plant utilizes natural gas which offers clean, much more environmentally friendly combustion. In addition, the steam MCC used to receive from Iola was transported through a mile-long steam line which was inefficient, and thus resulted in a loss of steam and, consequently, money. The cogeneration plant, however, is very efficient and will provide long-term energy cost savings.
Steam from Iola used to provide the campus with air conditioning also (how this happens is the subject of an entirely different article – just trust us). To compensate for the loss of steam for air conditioning we have also installed new, more efficient electric chiller plants in conjunction with the Campus Center construction project, and a hot water chiller as part of the cogeneration project.
This project is a result of Monroe County issuing a request for proposals for the sale of the Iola powerhouse to an entity that would provide a method to replace existing steam and electricity to County facilities. Siemens Building Technologies was the successful bidder and they proposed the natural gas fired cogeneration plant.
The new cogeneration equipment will be installed in an underground vault in front of Building 7. There will be four generators which are 1,350 kilowatts each and are driven by standard 12 cylinder Caterpiller natural gas powered engines. Three of the generators will be used for normal operation and one will be for emergencies. Every precaution has been taken to ensure that noise levels will not be an issue. The basement of Building 7 will also hold three natural gas fired hot water boilers for our heating and domestic hot water needs. The efficiency of the cogeneration plant stems from the fact that heat from the electric generators contributes to heating the hot water instead of being wasted.
Construction of the new cogeneration plant began in April 2003. The targeted completion date for the construction of the new vault and installation of new heating equipment in Building 7 is at the end of August 2003. The electric generators, which are to be placed in the vault, will arrive in the fall and are scheduled to be operational by January of 2004. The new electric chillers for our air conditioning needs are already installed and operating.
This project is a combined effort between Monroe Community College, The County of Monroe, Sieman’s Building Technologies, Inc., LeChase Contruction, Danforth Mechanical and Schuler Haus Electrical. Seiman’s Building Technologies, Inc. will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the new cogeneration plant.
Please click on the attachments below to view the construction progress on the new cogeneration plant to date.
Nancy Woodhams
Facilities
05/22/2003 |