July-August 2010

Increased Impact

At universities across the country, new technologies are helping redefine the role of distributed energy.

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Universities and college campuses continue to attract some of the best and most innovative aspects of distributed generation technology. Is it the status and prestige of powering a premiere institution, or the driving force of sustainability consciousness that pervades today’s culture? Either way, it’s easy to see why the following projects are important to the industry. From unique portable solar arrays to landfill gas usage to redefining Smart Grid technology, universities are growing in their impact for onsite distributed energy.

Major utilities have discovered the value of supporting universities with distributed energy solutions as part of their efforts to meet state renewable energy portfolio standards, and more importantly, to make renewable energy as familiar as the grid to their residential and commercial customers. In December 2009, Minneapolis, MN-based Xcel Energy and Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell (ENMU) broke ground on a 35-kW photovoltaic (PV) project that, despite its small size, carries big rewards.

The project is part of Xcel Energy’s New Mexico Community Solar program to educate the state’s citizens about the benefits of solar power and involves solar installations in four eastern and southeastern communities within the state. According to ENMU president John Madden, this will be Xcel’s first ground-mounted demonstration site—an important factor in making the technology accessible to adults, K–12 students, and of course, the university’s students.

To raise the awareness of students coming to Roswell and other New Mexico colleges, Xcel has partnered with Smart Energy Living Alliance, a nonprofit corporation, founded by the managing partners of the National Renewable Energy Lab and dedicated to enabling consumers to make smart energy decisions. “We work with schools and manage several K through 12 programs,” explains Mary Gifford, project coordinator for the Alliance.

Photo: UNH Interior of gas processing plant at landfill

Photo: IBM/Syracuse University Syracuse data worker

The program will eventually monitor the four PV sites, so students can access data such as hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly energy output, plus other environmental conditions. “It’s a tailored program, and the kids are exposed to 18 to 21 hours,” says Gifford. The program has a good track record with schools in Denver, CO, where teachers reported that students were excited to learn about solar energy and its importance to the environment.

The K–12 program and the new PV installation could have a significant impact on the university and the economic profile of Roswell, says Madden. “This project is great for school children and teaches them the principles of solar energy and gets them excited, so they will come here and pursue this technology as a career.” Current university students can expect 2010 to include a curriculum designed to provide training across a broad spectrum of fields.

“The easiest option is to address the installation and repair aspect,” says Madden. “That’s a fairly traditional curriculum for other universities, but someone has to make these products, and we think there is a future in teaching students about experimental design, manufacturing, and sales. Roswell is a rural area, and we are interested in developing a manufacturing base. This could be a huge impact on the economy obviously from the consumer aspect, but we could also become the makers of this technology.”

New Applications for Awkward Real Estate
Looking eastward from New Mexico, the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) in Wisconsin has similar expectations for a unique PV farm that could add a new dimension to developing site locations for such projects. In this case, the system is designed to be entirely portable. Initially, the portability feature allows the project to take advantage of land that could be described as a somewhat less than productive asset for the college—31 acres of remediated landfill that’s encumbered by poor access, television broadcast towers, and various long-term lease agreements.

“Ultimately, we wanted to demonstrate how we could use photovoltaics at remediated landfills, because there are so many of them, and they have so many restrictions,” says Mike Sargent, project coordinator and CFO at MATC. “Every urban community has these growing piles of garbage, and, usually, they just sit there with maybe some wells to capture the gas. And every city also has broadcast towers that are typically surrounded by areas that can’t be used. Photovoltaics require flatlands, and that land is often too expensive, so we decided to develop something for these lands, yet totally portable.”

The 411-kW farm will be developed by Johnson Controls and offer eight different configurations of nearly 2,500 PV panels. The variety of configurations was designed to boost student learning and efficiency as a training center for technicians, designers, site assessors, electricians, sales personnel, and other renewable energy professionals.

“The key to this will be the data collection, because we’re a technical college and most of the people that attend are here to learn technical skills,” says Sargent. “The different configurations bring into play eight different technical assemblies and combinations. Photovoltaic cells in different quantities require different converters and other considerations. We wanted to give as much exposure to the various types of installations that the students would encounter when they started working out in the field.” 

Sections of configurations vary from as small as a residential site to as large as a commercial site. By current standards, one portion of the site will be the largest in the state, and all should give the students exposure to the various problems and configurations they will encounter out in the field. The training capabilities will enhance and expand partnerships with other Wisconsin institutions such as University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and Concordia University Wisconsin. Additionally, K–12 teachers and students can visit the site live or by virtual means, to learn more about solar technology.

Will coal disappear from the campus?
As PV projects continue to grow at universities, another form of distributed energy, combined heat and power (CHP), is also on the rise. And with many universities setting ambitious climate action plans, CHP is often a key to reducing net greenhouse-gas emissions. For example, Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, has committed to zero emissions by 2050. The campus calculates its current level at 319,000 metric tons annually. Reduction plans include addressing fuel mix and renewable energy by transitioning from coal to natural gas, hydroelectric power, biomass-to-energy, geothermal, and wind power. One of the first in 2010 is a new 15,000-square-foot addition to the central heating plant. The CHP plant allows Cornell to replace an aging coal-fired steam generator with two natural gas-fired turbine generators producing a total of 30 MW, plus heat for steam and other processes. In news releases from Cornell, fuel efficiency is noted, but much emphasis was placed on the decrease in the coal consumption.

Cornell had relied on 60,000 tons of coal as its primary fuel for making steam before the CHP plant came online, and now it’s touting a reduction of coal usage by 80%, plus 28% less carbon emissions. Annual sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides also dropped by 800 tons and 250 tons, respectively.

Cornell isn’t the first to make a point of reducing coal consumption. Other universities have made similar efforts, including the University of Iowa, where the administration celebrated Earth Day 2005 with a project that burns biomass (oat husks from a Quaker Oats mill) along with coal, and noted significantly lower pollution emissions, plus, a newfound contribution to carbon sequestration. Few would deny that coal has a poor reputation in sustainability circles, but will it disappear as a fuel source for campus boilers?

Not yet, argues Dr. Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan, professor and chairman of the Chemical & Biological Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO. In January of 2009, the university embarked on an initiative to examine and improve the entire life cycle of coal, from mining to disposing of ash after it’s burned. “One option is using gasification in the mine, rather than removing the coal,” explains Al-Dahhan. “You burn it with very little oxygen and create synthesized gas, this way particulates and ash stays in the mine.” Synthesized gas has an additional benefit as an alternative fuel source that could replace diesel or other petroleum products in engines.

The university is also investigating the benefits of burning pulverized coal at higher temperatures for better efficiency. Results have shown that using a fluidized bed system and high pressure increases efficiency further, while reducing pollutants. Adding biomass is another option. For an innovative approach to removing CO₂, Al-Dahhan notes that his team is researching the use of micro algae to capture the gas. “Ultimately, we could have a closed cycle. This algae is very fast, in terms of photosynthesis, and can be used as a biofuel. It could be grown in empty mines which have stable temperatures, so it could be more economical to grow this algae in mines and send the CO₂ into the sealed mines to enhance the growth.”

Landfill Gas Welcome Here
Technologies to reduce or remove greenhouse gases are welcome within the halls of higher education, and the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) recent launch of its EcoLine project made news as the first landfill gas to energy system used as a primary source of power on campus. Completed in May of 2009, EcoLine could provide enough natural gas for up to 85% of the electricity and heat used by the 5-million-square-foot campus.

EcoLine is a partnership with Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise (TREE) in Rochester, NH, where the naturally occurring methane byproduct of landfill decomposition is collected by a system consisting of more than 300 extraction wells and miles of collection pipes. The gas is purified and compressed at a new UNH processing plant at TREE, then travels through a 12.7-mile-pipeline to UNH. There, it replaces commercial natural gas as the primary fuel source at a cogeneration plant installed by the university in 2006, as a replacement for an aging boiler.

Total cost of the project, including construction of the pipeline and the processing plant at TREE, was $49 million. The university sells the renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated by using landfill gas to help finance the overall cost of the project and to invest in additional energy efficiency projects on campus. In addition, UNH will sell power in excess of campus needs back to the electric grid.

The excess power comes from a second turbine that puts 100% of its 4.6-MW output back onto the grid. It doesn’t have heat recovery on it at this time, nor does it run when cold winter temperatures slow down the production of methane at landfills. Nonetheless, the majority of fuel for the 8-MW Siemens turbine and CHP unit comes from landfill gas. But burning it effectively and safely requires some special equipment.

“The gas composition depends on the condition of the landfill, and it’s something of a living breathing organism,” says Dave Bowley, Utility Systems Manager at UNH. “Things such as air pressure and temperature can affect the quality and quantity of the gas.” The turbine was upgraded to handle various grades of gas quality because the Siemens unit is normally a high-BTU machine. Special controls and software allow it to handle the median-BTU gas, which is 70 to 80% methane, versus 96% for natural gas. As an additional method to control the rate of change in the fuel, a 25,000-gallon fuel reservoir buffers the system with a known quality value because it takes time to alter the composition of the gas.

The installation of both turbines changed the way the university looks at energy distribution throughout the campus, notes Jim Dombrosk, director of energy and utilities at UNH. “We’re trying to increase the steam load in the summer and add more steam absorption chillers on campus,” says Dombrosk. “Before, we might have installed a gas domestic hot water heater for a group of buildings or used some other method, but now we would be looking at how we could get a steam line to that building.”

All told, both Dombrosk and Bowley view the project as a success that will help control natural gas costs that have grown 18% annually, along with load demands on campus. Moreover, the use of landfill gas has boosted the university’s image as a leader in the sustainability movement. “With the landfill gas aspect, it’s been extremely popular for all kinds of different kinds of groups, and tours by engineering societies, kids from K–12 schools, college students, and local adult organizations,” says Bowley. “So it’s been a great educational tool in terms of cogeneration technology and landfill gas recovery.”

In a related move, the UNH and the State of New Hampshire recently partnered to create the Green Launching Pad, an initiative that will bring new green technologies to the marketplace, help innovative clean technology companies succeed, and support the creation of “green” economy jobs in New Hampshire.

The popularity of such programs is a growing trend at universities and typically they offer extensive financial, operational, technical, and managerial support to launch and commercialize green energy products and services to established companies and start-ups. The Launching Pad draws on the engineering, energy, environmental, and business research at UNH and connects green entrepreneurs with angel investors and business mentors.

With a budget of $750,000, the program is funded through the NH State Office of Energy with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for two years. From that point, it’s intended to become self-sustaining through industry, private foundations, and funds that revolve back into the program from successful ventures.

State funding of distributed energy is another trend that’s gaining traction at universities and played a significant role in a revolutionary project that teamed IBM with Syracuse University and New York State. The goal was to build and operate a new computer data center on the university’s campus that could slash energy usage by as much as 50% less than the current usage seen at typical data centers.

Cogeneration Drives Major Savings
With a budget of $12.4 million, the 6,000-square-foot data center employs advanced infrastructure and smarter computing technologies. Yet, a critical design element to the center is the use of a decades-old technology, an onsite electrical cogeneration system powered by 12 natural gas-fueled microturbines, designed to operate as a microgrid, with complete freedom from utility power.

“The turbines generate electricity that can be AC [alternating current] or DC [direct current], or a combination of either,” says Mark Weldon, executive director of corporate relations at Syracuse. “But we want to use DC as much as possible to avoid conversion steps and ship it at high-voltage. So IBM is working with us to give us high-voltage computers as often as possible.”

The project is part of IBM’s “Smarter Planet” initiative and responds to the spiraling consumption and inefficient use of power by data centers. The company contributed more than $5 million in equipment; design services; and support; plus the electrical cogeneration equipment and servers, such as the IBM BladeCenter, IBM Power 575, and IBM z10 systems; and, importantly, IBM’s innovative, Rear Door Heat eXchanger “cooling doors.”

The cooling doors are connected to double effect absorption chillers that run off of 560° exhaust from the turbines. “The chillers can produce 48-degree water and that’s used for a piping system underneath the raised floor to cool the computers,” explains Weldon. “We are right next door to another building, so the surplus chilled water can air-condition the building in the summer, and we can make hot water for space heating when needed. So there are benefits outside of the data center as well as inside.”

The other innovation is something the Syracuse team calls, “thermally aware energy efficiency utilization.”

“Typically, when you virtualize load and move it around to different computers, you don’t know what the exact thermal environment is, so it’s possible to overheat the rack,” says Weldon. “With our system, we know the temperatures of each rack, and we can intelligently move the load, instead of moving the cooling to the load, which is wasteful.” By sending the load to the cooling virtually, operators can shut down computers and the cold water that flows to that particular rack, so it’s better for concentrating the load. Another benefit is a lower cost to cool the building, and lower overall staffing requirements.

Industry media buzz about the project has created a backlog of interest from private concerns that want to use the data center services, and from businesses that would like to co-locate their servers on the premises. “It wasn’t in our original plan, but we’re starting to think about it because there would be financial benefits,” says Weldon. “We have the capacity, because when you do water cooling, you can intensify the racks and use the same square footage to accommodate two, three, and four times the density. So a lot of the things that we hadn’t planned on doing are now becoming options.”

Smart Grid and Smarter Load Management

With their microturbines and the ability to run independently from the utility’s grid, Syracuse may want to look at another option that just launched at Drexel University Philadelphia, PA—one that could reap substantial benefits for universities nationwide. Drexel is the first institution in the US to deploy a smart grid-based software technology know as “virtual generation,” wherein large energy users can become independent energy sources by selling excess power or the curtailment of their load back to the public grid.

Drexel partnered with Viridity Energy, based in Conshohocken, PA, to install the company’s VPower system energy monitoring product on a portion of the 65-acre campus. The goal is to demonstrate the benefits of managing energy cost and environmental impact with real-time electric prices. Often termed as “virtual generation,” the system allows institutions, such as Drexel, to purchase power at times when demand is low and curtail or sell power when it’s financially beneficial. The underlying concept isn’t new, but integrating it with weather prediction and pricing data offer great efficiency and economic potential.

“The first phase will consist of three buildings arranged to use with the building management systems to become a controllable or dispatchable load similar to a generator when it is on call to serve a certain market need,” says Chika Nwankpa, a Drexel professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, who leads the university’s Smart Grid efforts. “We want to see if the loads can do the same thing. These buildings are not submetered at the moment, but that is part of the project.”

The HVAC units are the biggest loads in the buildings, and tests will determine the response and performance related to building temperatures and time intervals. “We’re hoping to get a 20 to 30% savings on each building,” adds Nwankpa. One of the first, and unexpected, benefits was the discovery that some of the HVAC systems operations were overlapping each other due to retrofitting efforts that were not coordinated properly with legacy equipment.

According to Audrey Zibelman, CEO of Viridity Energy, the most important benefit to the software is integrating powerful algorithms and building systems, as well as distributed energy resources that can use load as a dynamic resource on the grid. Combined with the ability to predict thermal requirements and energy on a very accurate level, users can realize economic benefits through activities such as pre-cooling buildings and using load itself as a form of storage.

“It’s something we’ve known that you can pre-cool a building and let the temperature rise, then turn it on again as a way of conserving energy,” says Zibelman. “But to be able to predict when you need to do that in a way that keeps people comfortable is essential. Over the long run, behaviors are such that people will not tolerate discomfort in working or living environments. We’re looking to make this an additional resource on the grid by predicting [outdoor] temperature changes and how thermostat changes will affect buildings and kilowatt savings.”

For universities that have distributed energy, or are considering adding generation as well as storage such as solar and batteries, Zibelman says the benefits can be substantial. “In terms of savings, they could be looking at potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year, depending on the size of the customer,” she notes. “When you think about it right now, when we have markets with customers that participate in demand response [curtailment], they’re participating less than 7% of the year because there are very few times when the utilities ask people to cut usage in response to price. What we’re looking at is participating as much as 2,000 hours per year.” 

What’s the mean for distributed energy? Zibelman’s goal is to reduce the payback time and increase the return on investment in technologies by as much as a half or a third. “Now you’re not just using it for shaping or offsetting peak, but essentially as a primary resource on the grid to manage your own costs and manage the need of the system as a whole while adding new generation,” she explains. “One of the objectives of the Smart Grid is to integrate distributed generation onto the system. There are two ways to do that, either the utilities have access to these resources and use them when they perceive as beneficial, or the customers have access to the resources and use them when they perceive it to be beneficial.”

Zibelman says Viridity is also working with the University of San Diego (San Diego, CA), where their onsite generation includes two 1-MW photovoltaic solar panel installations, a 2.8-MW fuel cell plant, and a 30-MW cogeneration plant. It’s not difficult to imagine the opportunities in California’s resource-strained electricity market. Of course, Veridity’s success at Drexel will be watched closely, but obviously, the concept of predictive load management and power generation integrated into the Smart Grid is something that can be realized, and most likely by a number of companies.

For the examples we’ve seen at the universities in this article, it’s another signal of the expanding role of these large consumers of energy. One that will strengthen sustainability efforts and stimulate significant economic benefits in developing distributed energy.  

Author's Bio: Writer Ed Ritchie specializes in energy, transportation, and communication technologies.