Photo Jim Butler.
The district cooling plant is housed within the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Arena. The arena uses district cooling for office humidity and temperature control, and district heating for its space heating
and domestic hot water needs.
addition, the community benefits from
the reduced pollution caused by the firing of many small, inefficient boilers.”
The Jamestown Board of Public
Utilities is currently the largest municipally owned generating facility in the
state. While its capacity has recently
been supplemented by a 50 MW high-efficiency gas turbine generator, most of
its energy comes from four aging coal-fired boilers. But that is about to change.
“It’s clear that the age and inefficiency of this old plant will make it dif-
Replacing the old plant, on the same
site, is the most efficient way to ensure
an economical supply of electricity and
district heating well into the future.”
Butler expects the new boilers to be
online by 2010, with the existing boilers
retired by 2017.
The footprint of the current distribution system covers a relatively modest
80-sq-block area, but the BPU is already
planning for the day when it can extend
the network to several key load centers
outside the current service area. “Two
miles away is a community college with
six buildings,” says Oliker. “It’s not economical to run lines out there yet, but
in the meantime we have connected all
of the campus buildings into one loop.
In a few years when the BPU lines reach
the college, all they will need to do is
connect to that loop.” The Jamestown
BPU is also working with the nearby
Lutheran Social Services complex to
help the organization build its own
loop, preparing for eventual connection
to the BPU system.
While the focus of the Samuel A.
Carlson plant has been on electric generation and district heating, the BPU
also operates a small district cooling
system. Its chiller plant is located in the
Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Arena.
Using a conventional motor and compressor, HFC134a refrigerant cools a
loop of ethylene glycol that is circulated
to heat exchangers connected to the
chilled-water distribution loop. The glycol also circulates in a loop of an ice-storage tank, creating ice that can supplement the cooling system during periods of peak demand. There is no
chilled-water storage tank. The system
has three large customers, including
City Hall, which was able to abandon its
three rooftop chillers and install a 6-ft-
tall heat exchanger in its basement. Like
the heating system, there is plenty of
room for growth.
The BPU’s close relationship with
City planning officials enables BPU to
keep abreast of proposed construction
and renovation projects in the area.
Combining electric generation, district
heating and cooling, water and wastewater functions into one utility has created opportunities for sharing personnel, equipment and expertise across all
divisions. For example, the piping for
the district heating and cooling opera-
For more information about clean
coal technology, visit
Jamestown Board of Public Utilities
www.jamestownbpu.com
Clean Coal Technology Compendium
www.netl.doe.gov/cctc/
U. S. Department of Energy
www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/
powersystems/cleancoal/
World Coal Institute
www.wci-coal.com
Second International Conference on
Clean Coal Technologies
www.cct2005.it/
The combination of electric
generation, district heating
and cooling, water and
wastewater functions into
one utility has created oppor-
tunities for sharing personnel,
equipment and expertise
across all divisions.
ficult for the BPU to meet new environmental regulations and allow for system
expansion to meet growing demand,”
notes Butler. “To meet these future needs,
we have begun the permitting process
for a new plant that will burn clean coal,
coke and up to 10 percent opportunity
fuels such as wood waste and old tires.
tions is installed and maintained by the
Water Division, and the hot water is
supplied by the Electric Division.
So how many employees does the
district heating and cooling operation
have? “I’m the only one,” says Butler,
who formerly worked in the Electric
Division. “The Carlson generating station
is highly automated, and the other divisions provide our hot and chilled water
and system maintenance. My number
one goal is to help attract new customers, showing them the advantages of
locating downtown and connecting to
our district energy system. We had modest growth in 2004, but we’re anticipating a 10 percent increase in our customer
base by the end of 2005.”
