District Energy - 2007 Fourth Quarter

recovery steam generator is the lowest rate for an industrial boiler and combustion turbine generator approved for BACT standards in the country, as determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s RACT/BACT/LAER Clearinghouse ( http://cfpub1.epa.gov/rblc/htm/bl02.cfm).

The CHP operation uses an advanced 10 MW dual-fuel combustion turbine in combination with a highly efficient combined-cycle system of heat recovery and steam turbine-driven electric generation to achieve a nearly ideal heat rate. All of this is housed in an architecturally unique and attractive building that befits the campus’s setting (fig. 1).

Planning Commences

To pay for the project, the campus sought a tax-exempt bond issue in 1999, financed by the University of Massachusetts Building Authority and funded through student activity fees. As the Building Authority is a separate state agency from the UMass system, this required close coordination and cooperation between the two agencies. The Building Authority, through its executive director, David MacKenzie, is responsible for capital financing, design and construction of the CHP system, while the UMass campus is responsible for CHP staffing, operations and maintenance.

Conceptual planning began when UMass retained Levitan & Associates of Boston in 2000 to evaluate the size and cogeneration options for a central heating plant at the UMass Amherst campus; Sebesta Blomberg further advanced the project in 2002. Through these firms’ insightful technical and economic analyses, the campus became convinced that a cogeneration facility sized for its specific steam and electric loads was as economical on a cost-per-kilowatt or pound-of-steam basis as a larger facility designed to export power off campus.

The CHP plant is designed to meet the campus steam and electric demands for the next 20 years, providing 16 MW and up to 360,000 lb/hr of steam, with one boiler in spinning reserve. Systems controls allow the facility to follow the campus steam demand while generating electric power to meet most of the campus electric demand. The campus will continue to import some electric power

during peak demand periods.

Striking a balance between the economies of a smaller cogeneration facility sized for campus-only loads versus a larger energy facility designed to export power, the UMass CHP concept was born. As the facility was financed with tax-exempt bonds, it is designed to meet only campus loads ‘inside the fence,’ and not to wheel and sell power off site.

Sebesta Blomberg supported negotiations with the local natural gas distribution company, Berkshire Gas Co. The resulting gas delivery project was designed, permitted and constructed by Berkshire Gas, which completed its work ahead of schedule to support first fire in the combustion gas turbine in December 2007. Startup and commissioning of the three package boilers is set for January 2008.

The physical plant also retained R.W. Beck of Boston in 2005 to assist in the development of staffing plans, an operations budget and a 10-year preventive maintenance plan for the new CHP plant. Boston-based Vanderweil Engineers and an experienced team of consultants, including Cambridge Seven Architects, were selected by the UMass Building Authority to permit and design the project.

“The last four years have been intense,” notes Physical Plant Director Pat Daly. The Vanderweil project team assisted the Building Authority and UMass Amherst beginning in 2002 with a rigorous site selection process, demand forecasts and economic pro formas for sizing and designing the CHP installation. As the project team completed engineering studies in 2003, and began detailed CHP designs in 2004, it also applied for comprehensive air and environmental permits to various state and federal agencies.

To preload the building site, the project team designed and monitored the import of 160,000 tons of gravel two years before building construction. Preloading caused soft, varved clays underlying the site to settle two feet, avoiding the more expensive option of pile foundations. The campus also completed an early steam tunnel construction package, built by Daniel O’Connell’s Sons of Holyoke in 2005, and began negotiations of an electric interconnection agreement with Western Massachusetts Electric Co. in 2006.

Completing hundreds of construc-

Courtesy University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The boiler hall within UMass Amherst’s new central heating plant.

tion documents and thousands of pages of specifications, the CHP design team integrated 19 complex, engineered plant systems into a handsome building design. The project was publicly bid in September 2005, and a construction manager contract was awarded to O&G Industries of Tor-rington, Conn., that winter.

Construction on site began in January 2006. The project is entering its startup and commissioning phase this fall, with completion and handoff to UMass Physical Plant scheduled for March 1, 2008.

UMass Amherst, the Building Authority and Vanderweil’s project management team created an independent engineer/ commissioning agent process and request for proposals for the new CHP system – one of the first times this process has been used in the industry. By selecting the team of Sebesta Blomberg and Penn Power, UMass integrated a total quality assurance framework throughout the CHP project using commissioning as its foundation.

“This quality framework, layered over project design and construction processes and procedures, includes both peer review and facility commissioning plans and specifications,” explains Daly. “We think it will result in a smooth turnover from the Building Authority to the campus with very reliable operation.”