EnergyIndependence

TheS.W. JackCogeneration Plant

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Cogeneration at IUP

When ground was broken for thecogeneration plant in October, 1985,Pennsylvania's Lt. Gov. WilliamScranton, right, was among thosewho took part, as were universityVice-President Edward Receski, left,President John Welty, SSHE Vice-Chancellor Wayne Failor, StateDepartment of General ServicesSecretary Walter Baran, and StateSenator (and Council of TrusteesChairperson) Patrick Stapleton.

The Italianate tower of the univer-sity's earlier power plant is visibleto the left of the new cogenerationplant.

.-nuppose, for a moment, that you have a big house that youheat with steam. You make the steam by shoveling coal intoyour furnace. At the same time, your house uses lots ofelectricity, which you buy from the local utility company. You

have big coal bills. You have big electric bills.

Now suppose that you find a way to produce your own electricity andat the same time to produce steam to heat your house. You find thatnot only can you make enough electricity for your own house, but youcan make extra electricity that you can sell to the utility company.Instead of paying electric bills, you begin collecting electric bills.

What would you do? In a simplified way, this is the situation IUP facedeight years ago, when it began to study the possibilities ofcogeneration-the generation of heat and electricity from the samefuel.

"We had already done the easy things to save money," said Vice-President for Administration C. Edward Receski. "We caulked the win-dows, we put up plastic wind barriers, we changed the lighting. We didall the simple things that don't cost a lot of money. But we actuallydidn't save a whole lot, either. So we went out looking for ways to savemore, and in 1980 we decided to look at cogeneration."

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How does it work?

The S.W. Jack Cogeneration Plant utilizes four dual-fuel four-cycle reciprocating engines to produce electricity and heat.The term "dual-fuel" refers to the No. 2 diesel fuel oil that

. is used for ignition and the natural gas that is used forcombustion.

( 99%)The natural gas normally composes ninetyW·nEpercent of the total fuel,with the diesel oil used only to ignite the air-gas mixture. If for any rea-son gas pressure were to be insufficient to maintain dual-fuel operation,built-in controls would automatically shut off the gas, and the quantityof diesel oil would be increased. The engine could continue to operate,without any interruption in service, on full diesel fuel.

Hourly readings taken at one of the main engine control panels are usedto evaluate system performance.

One by-product of the electricalgeneration process is engineexhaust gas; heat from the gas isconverted to steam through aCleaver-Brooks waste heat boiler,above. Each hour, 10,800 pounds ofsteam at 125 psi is generated byeach engine system for a totalsteam capacity of 43,200 Ibs.lhr.Right: energy conversion diagram ofIUP Cogeneration Plant.

During the operation of the engines, electricity is generated and engineexhaust gas is directed to the waste heat boilers, where steam isgenerated. (In addition to the exhaust gas, engine jacket water is alsoused for heating three adjacent buildings that have hot water heat.)This steam can fill the average load requirements of the university'sunderground steam distribution system. During extremely cold periods,the existing ga:~-fired boilers will help satisfy thermal demand.

Of the 24.3 megawatts of electricity produced by the engines, approxi-mately twenty percent is needed for use at the university, leaving theremainder to be supplied to Penelec over a dedicated high voltage lineto the East Pike Substation located on Twolick Drive. (The cogenerationplant itself uses about 1 megawatt of power.) Two 1S-MVA transformersat the university substation increase the voltage from 12,470V toapproximately 23,OOOV for delivery of power to Penelec.

Not only does cogeneration make financial sense for IUP, but it makessense in terms of the efficient and conservative use of energy. No mat- .ter what technology is used, or what size plant, no more than forty per-cent of any raw fuel can be converted into useful high-grade energy(electricity), and no more than eighty percent of raw fuel can be con-verted into useful low-grade energy (heat). The rest is wasted.

What usually happens is that fuel is converted to electricity at one loca-tion with sixty to eighty percent of the energy wasted, while other fuelis converted to low-grade heat in virtually every occupied building, fac-tory, or home, with at least twenty percent, and often much more, ofthe fuel wasted. .

26.4 MMBTUh

75.7 MMBTUh 103.3 MMBTUh

ELECTRIC

COGENERATIONENGINES

205.4 MMBTUh

Mark Geletka, left, director ofenergy production and conserva-tion; Robert Marx, center, directorof campus physical planning;

As the simultaneous generation of heat and electricity from the samefuel, cogeneration saves costly energy. Provided that the users of heatare close enough to the source of electric generation so that heat canbe transported economically-as is the case with the university's steamloop, cogeneration can save between twenty-five and forty percent ofthe fuel that would be used in conventional methods.

In operation, Cooper-Bessemer LSVB engines like the ones at IUPhave helped cogeneration plants achieve over eighty-seven percentthermal efficiency. This is nearly three times the efficiency of a conven-tional utility electrical generating system. Typically, eighty-five percentof the fuel coming into the engine is converted to usable forms of heatand electricity.

Universities and colleges with cogeneration plants are still relativelyrare. But IUP has good company as a pioneer in the field.

Cogeneration at institutions of higher learning ranges all the way fromOberlin College's single steam turbine to Harvard Medical School's sixdiesel engines and two steam turbines. On a continuum of size, fromthe smallest to largest, the IUP plant falls right in the middle.

In a way, cogeneration is not new at IUP. Until construction of thecogeneration plant began, steam was used to drive a Skinner steamengine generator set to produce between two and three percent of theuniversity's electrical requirements. This minimal production was athrowback to the days when the campus was small, electric usage wasslight, and IUP produced most of its own power in what was essentiallya cogeneration system without the name.

IUPUtilities Group Co-Generation Department

SYNCHELECT -

GENERATOR6.08 MW -

12,470 V

12.4 KV SUB.CO-GEN PLANTBASEMENT

CAMPUSELECTRICALDISTRIBUTION

S.W. JACK Co-GENERATION PLANTCombined Systems Flow Diagram

o ooo COo 0

o-o 400F

JENGINE EXHAUST --> @ 950F

_0000000 l- PRIME MOVER -

~ COOPER BESSEMERDUAL FUELED

r- ENGINE JM I~86 HP,@ 400 RP~

III II IIIIIIII I

NATURAL99%

#2 DIESELFUEL OIL

1%

GAS JACKETWATER1800 F

WASTEHEATBOILER

11K #/HR125 PSI

I

AUXILIARYFIREDSTEAMPLANT115 PSI

STEAMTO CAMPUS80 Lb.PSI

23 KV INTERCONNECTION CIRCUIT UTILITY~-->---->---->---->---->---->---->- SUB-STATION

DISTRIBUTION