The City and East Campus Utility Plant provides year-round heating and cooling to East Campus. Pressurized steam is delivered to campus buildings through pipes in underground tunnels while chilled water is delivered by means of buried pipelines.
Increasing Efficiency in Heating and Cooling
One of the newer features at ECUP that is producing huge operational cost savings is the Thermal Energy Storage tank (TES), located just a short walk northeast of the ECUP. Built in 2012, the 2.8-million gallon TES allows ECUP to store water that is chilled during off-peak electricity rate hours overnight. That stored chilled water is then distributed throughout the hottest hours of the day to air-condition East Campus buildings.
The building of a similar TES tank for use on City Campus has already began and expected to complete in Fall 2017.
In preparation for future campus growth, the ECUP has undergone heating & cooling capacity expansion by adding a new chiller and heat exchanger system to their TES. This new addition will take advantage of the cold winter weather to chill water and reduce the use of fossil fuel.