At a time when global warming is an increasing concern and the demand for clean, renewable energy sources is higher than ever before, the UNH campus has found itself on the cutting edge of clean and efficient energy sources.
The UNH Cogeneration Plant, located at the intersection of College Road and Library Way, is a landmark in the relatively recent effort toward a more eco-friendly generation of college campuses. This is a first step toward larger scale projects in the future that could potentially power entire metropolitan areas. Cogeneration is the production of electricity using waste heat, such as steam, from an industrial process or the use of steam from electric power generation as a source of heat.
"We can be a leader in this field," said Matt O'Keefe, the Campus Energy manager at UNH. While most college campuses use cogeneration as a power source, the incorporation of methane gas piped from landfills is the newest and most efficient trend. O'Keefe cites UCLA as one of the few other college campuses with efficient integration of the landfill component into cogeneration.
Cogeneration technology has been around for a number of years. At the heat plant facility, it has been underway for over a year and a half. Traditionally, the cogeneration (should there be a noun here?) was powered by duel fuels, which were oil and natural gas. The addition of a third fuel, methane gas, into the cogeneration process is a relatively new technology.
The process of adding the third fuel line is in progress. Methane gas, a natural byproduct of decomposition in landfills, is captured, piped to the plant and burned as fuel to power a turbine. The production of the methane gas is facilitated by seeding landfills with microbes and aerating it to promote microbial decomposition that leads to higher methane yields.
"We've known about microbially-mediated methano-genesis for a long time and that capped landfills produce methane," said Michael Lesser, a research professor in the department of microbiology. "But capturing the methane for use as an energy source is pretty recent."
Currently, the UNH plant powers the majority of academic and residence hall buildings on the core campus. The main building, built in the 1920s, first relied on coal and oil to power boilers, which fed exhaust into the landmark white smokestack that can be seen today.
Now, that smokestack is rarely seen emitting exhaust, as one turbine, powered by naturally occurring methane gas from the nearby Turnkey Landfill, has replaced the three original boilers. The turbine can power up to 7.9 megawatts of energy, or 90,000 pounds of steam an hour. The project is expected to be complete and running at full efficiency by this fall.
The estimated cost of the project, which includes the construction of a second generator, is $45 million. This project is a large financial venture; however, five years ago when UNH was facing a $10 million investment in the older plant technologies, the option to invest in cogeneration appeared more efficient, less costly and environmentally sound in the long term.
"It is more clean and efficient," said Alan Johnson, the plant electrician. The project, still in progress, is a culmination of the most advanced practices in the fields of microbiology, energy engineering and sustainability.
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