Stewards & Scholars

Campus Co-Generation Power Plant Tour

By Allyson Schmieder

RVCC touts its sustainability accomplishments, such as achieving carbon neutral status since 2017. Additionally, the school received the federal Green Ribbon School Sustainability Award in 2016. But what are the actual sustainability actions on campus that have led to RVCC's numerous sustainability awards?

Brian O’Rourke, Executive Director of Facilities and Grounds for over 16 years, has the answers.

On a November afternoon, faculty members stood bundled up at the entrance to the campus power plant for Brian’s tour of the equipment and systems inside.

The cogeneration plant, or co-gen for short, was the star of the show. Appearing as an off-limits building near the Arts Center to most, the co-gen plant is the source of electricity to the main campus. The sustainability twist is that through burning natural gas for electricity, the system also generates heat for all the buildings—a two for one! Installed in 2007, the capabilities of the co-gen plant paved the way toward achieving ambitious sustainability goals.

Brian guided the group through various industrial-sized machines and systems that took up entire rooms and filled the air with a loud noise best described as industrial fuzz. These components inside the power plant allow for incredible effectiveness in saving energy, reducing emissions, and cutting costs for the college.

The magic of the co-gen plant is its engine, which uses an absorption unit to convert exhaust engine gasses into either coolant or hot water, reducing the need for additional conventional boilers to heat and cool buildings.

The byproducts of electricity generation are thus harnessed for moderating temperatures of campus buildings with hot and chilled water loops that circulate through the campus buildings. Not only does this capacity make the highest use of natural gas, but it also results in substantially lower operating costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

Brian points to the conventional boilers, which are not constantly running, as they are supplemented by the co- generation plant's functionality.

As RVCC embarked on lowering its energy spending and its overall greenhouse gas emissions output, the plant served as an essential asset in the school’s transition to 100% renewable energy.

Sue Dorward, RVCC’s Sustainability & Energy Coordinator, works alongside Brian in the Office of Facilities to strive for sustainability goals. She writes, “RVCC was the first community college in the country to run an energy- saving cogeneration plant, which contributes to our 51% emissions reduction since 2005.”

Ultimately, these choices measured up to accomplishing carbon neutrality in 2017. This entails reducing the campus’s direct emissions to the highest extent, and then purchasing carbon offsets to address the college's remaining emissions. The initiative allows for the school to reduce its contribution to atmospheric levels of carbon that are causing climate catastrophe.

Sue Dorward shares, “The College has reduced Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by running a cogeneration plant, buying 100% renewable energy, building to LEED standards, and performing numerous energy efficiency upgrades.” Scope 1 emissions refer to direct emissions from natural gas, oil, and gasoline. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from purchased electricity. Scope 3 emissions (which have not been fully reduced) include indirect emissions from all of the vehicles that commute to campus.

To address those emissions that cannot be reduced further, Sue researches and purchases high-quality renewable energy offsets. Offsets refer to the production of renewable energy, such as wind and hydroelectric, elsewhere to account for remaining emissions on campus.

While the cogeneration plant has served the campus well, it has a 25-35 year lifespan, which means new methods of heating and cooling will need to be identified within the next few decades. In the meantime, the school invests in greener methods of electricity generation, such as the solar panels installed above Lot 5 and more recently in the field next to the Workforce building.

RVCC remains an influential force in sustainability as the first community college to become carbon neutral in addition to achieving several environmental accolades and national recognition for its sustainability initiatives. RVCC staff continues to work towards minimizing parts of our carbon footprint that are beyond a regular person’s abilities and comprehension. Both Sue and Brian can attest to the assortment of tactics they’ve implemented to better our campus despite the difficulties that arise.

All the while, they make great strides in promoting other facets of sustainability by tending to our campus green spaces, reducing waste production, and reducing water usage -- all intended to improve our experience on campus behind the scenes. Brian, who has given similar tours to interested community members and classes throughout his 16 years at RVCC, will gladly impress newcomers with his department’s rigor for sustainability time and again.

Contact Brian O’Rourke to schedule a class or club tour of the campus’ green facilities!

(Brian.O'Rourke@raritanval.edu)

More about the Co-Gen!

The Cooling Towers. These stand outside the main co-generation plant building and were built in tandem with the co-gen. Their function is to cool the condensing water for the refrigerant of campus' air conditioning system. Brian summarizes, "The condensing water cools the refrigerant, the refrigerant then cools the chilled water, and it's done at different pressures." The condenser water enters the tower at ~95°F. The cooling tower is like a waterfall -- the condenser water flows downward over baffles and fans draw air from outside and blow it upward. The heat transfers in a cycle and the water is cooled back down to ~80°F. The water picks up heat again from the refrigerant, refueling the cycle.

The Boiler Room. There are two 500 horse-power boilers that run on natural gas. Only one boiler is needed to heat the entire school, even during the coldest months. But if one machine goes down, there is a backup to switch to. Additionally, they alternate running each boiler.

The boilers are duel-fuel, meaning they could potentially function on natural gas or oil, but they rarely use oil, due to natural gas being a cleaner fuel to burn. The Office of Facilities saves up to $70,000-$80,000 annually using an interruptible gas rate rather than on-demand supply.

Brian shows us inside the boiler. Tubes within hold water which when turned on, flames engulf and heat. The various pipes leading into the boiler feed in the gas and fuel oil. The school used to have tanks of oil on-site but they were removed several years ago and replaced by an 8,000 gallon double-walled tank to prevent environmental risk on campus

Hot Water Tanks. These tanks of water send heated water to campus to heat up buildings. Similar to the boilers, only one unit runs at a time with other units serving as a safety net in face of malfunction. "Redundancy!" Brian exclaims. Four separate pipes stretch underground from the tanks, where they branch out to all parts of campus–for hot water supply and return and chilled water supply and return. Those on-campus are familiar with main water break incidents. Brian notes how the pipes date back to about 17 years ago but even newer pipes can become eroded. The location of leaks can be challenging to spot. Local geology of decomposing shale causes leaking water to disperse underground rather than come to the surface. Drones with infrared cameras allow them to immediately identify leaks based on ground temperature.

The Chillers. Trane Chillers weigh 600 tons a piece. Typically, one chiller running at a time is enough to support air conditioning needs. Brian mentions that his team sought out a refrigerant considered more environmentally-friendly.

In both chillers, there are two sets of water, the chilled water supply and return, and then the condensing water and refrigerant. Again, the condenser water cools the refrigerant and the refrigerant cools condenser water utilizing varying pressures. This is similar to a home A/C system that may use fans to cool the water for its refrigeration cycle. The liquids never mix but tubes and coils go a long way to allow this process to work. You can think of the chiller as the opposite of the boiler. The water within is surrounded by cooling refrigerant. High amounts of electricity compress the refrigerant to allow for temperature change.

Brian likes to think of it in terms of passing energy – some energy from the air that cools the water is passed along to the condenser which is passed to the refrigerant which is passed back to the chilled water.

Absorption Chiller: Exhaust Chiller/Heather. Exhaust air enters this chiller and is used as thermal energy to create either hot or chilled water, depending on the current need.

The Co-Gen Engine. This Jenbacher Natural Gas Engine produces electricity -- its exhaust creates 800°F of heat. The facility recaptures that heat. "We have hot water that goes out to campus around 160 degrees and comes back around 155°F . When we have the co-gen running, we run it through a heat exchanger that takes the heat, runs it through a coil. They run across one another and the water is heated forgoing the need for the boiler.

"The simplest way to think of co-gen is one fuel, and two benefits," states Brian. The fuel is natural gas and the benefit is the electricity created as well as heating and cooling.

Pollution Reduction. A tank of urea, or hog urine, sits nearby the co-gen engine. Purchased from a supplier in South Jersey, urea is pumped into a box above the co-gen engine to assist in pollution reduction. Urea injection entails spraying the co-gen exhaust flowing into the urea box, which then reduces NOx emissions. NOx refers to two forms of nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2) that affect human health when forming ground level ozone. The NJ Department of Environmental Protection monitors those emissions and a separate computer monitors the performance of this process on-campus. Every 5 years, RVCC pays $30,000 for a test performed by the NJDEP to verify this.

Energy Saving. Similar to the gas having an interruptible rate to save costs, the electric side of campus uses a program called "demand response" to save electricity. During the hottest days of the summer when there is high demand on the electricity grid for cooling, the utility service will call Facilities and ask them to reduce their electric load by a specific amount.

For instance, the campus may use around 2 Megawatts of power on high- demand days but they will be asked by the utility service to reduce their usage by 1 Megawatt for a few hours. By running the co-gen, the school can easily reduce their energy load and in turn, receive $30,000-40,000 for participating in this program. Depending on the year, the payment will vary and the number of events during which the school is asked to reduce their electricity load varies. When there are more events occurring and participated in, there is greater financial incentive.

Brian expresses how he and his cohorts are aggressive in trying to run facilities in a sustainable and financially savvy way. "It all comes down to tuition in the end," Brian reflects. As someone who gives tours to students to explain his work, he takes great pride in reducing costs for the school, with the aim that those cost savings will trickle down to students.

Renewable Energy. 100% of the power used at Raritan has been intentionally purchased from renewable sources since 2017; it all comes through the same powerlines. Brian remarks how it's not too expensive to make the transition, about $7-8k per year.

Carbon Offsets. RVCC still creates emissions through using natural gas and oil. Offsets from solar, wind, and hydroelectric power plants balance out those unavoidable emissions. RVCC recognizes the impact of emissions and pays for renewable energy facilities to generate energy with zero emissions to offset our emissions. Sue Dorward currently is looking into methods of carbon removal. Though this method of offset is costly, it's considered higher quality because carbon emissions are directly removed from the atmosphere.

Solar Plants. There is one solar power installation near Lot 5 connected to the Arts Building. The panels are owned by a third party meaning there was no cost for installation. The catch is that the school is obligated to purchase all the energy produced. This comes at half the rate the school would normally pay for electric energy from utility. This creates $30-40k in savings annually. Recently, a second solar plant was installed in a drainage basin by the Workforce Building. Again, the land is leased to this third party who owns the panels and installs them at no cost. This will create another $30-40k in savings each year!

Why aren't we doing more of this? The Workforce and Arts buildings have their own meters. They're both on separate meters compared to the rest of the campus. If the other meter for the rest of campus is supplied by solar, the co-generation engine (which relies on greenhouse gases) would no longer be needed. The goal is to get the rest of campus on to all solar power to make the co-generation plant obsolete.

Net metering means the solar power plants on campus have no battery to store energy. Instead, the energy company JCP&L (and Sue!) tracks the energy bank. When more solar energy is generated than used, the power meter runs backward. Then on cloudy days in which less solar energy is created, the school can use the needed energy. Brian states that NJ laws restrict building solar plants above and beyond 90% of the building's energy needs. Due to increased efficiency with the Arts Building renovation, Brian claims that campus still makes the most of the situation.

Bonus Info: A Timeline of RVCC’s Carbon Neutrality

In 2017, RVCC offset all remaining Scope 1 emissions (direct emissions from natural gas, oil, and gasoline) by acquiring carbon offsets, mostly for wind energy and some for the capture of landfill gas.

Since 2014, the College has offset all remaining Scope 2 emissions (indirect emissions from purchased electricity), by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits for US wind energy. RVCC is the second community college in the U.S. to commit to 100% renewable electricity through the EPA Green Power Partnership.

RVCC has achieved carbon neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 emissions and is currently working on offsetting Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from all of the vehicles that commute to campus) by providing electric-vehicle charging stations as well as support for carpooling and public transportation.

Sue shares, "We also have solar power for the Arts and Child Care buildings, but we don't own the solar Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for those (the developer that built the solar array does) so that technically doesn't reduce our carbon emissions."

Sustainability | General Information Raritan Valley Community College, NJ