Northwestern’s energy supplier, Commonwealth Edison, has started to investigate building a new power plant on the Chicago Campus, a move administrators say could service reliability.
A cogeneration plant, which would simultaneously produce steam and electricity, would give NU more direct control over its power, said Ron Nayler, associate vice president for facilities management.
“If we have a cogeneration plant on our campus, you don’t have to worry about something like a tree knocking out wires in Skokie,” Nayler said.
The energy supplier’s study will take about a month to finish, said Andy Toy, a ComEd spokesman. From the results of a preliminary survey done about five years ago, Chicago Campus looks like a good candidate for cogeneration because the buildings already use steam for heating, he said.
“With any cogeneration plant, you have to have a use not only for electricity but the steam that’s generated through the system,” Toy said. “NU has that.”
The system’s faster production also would be more environmentally and economically sound for the university, Nayler said.
“Whether you’re burning oil or you’re burning gas, you’re getting double the benefits,” he said.
Though the Evanston Campus has a contract with ComEd through 2005, Nayler said the university eventually will explore the possibility of bringing cogeneration to the North Shore. The Evanston Campus probably would be even better suited for cogeneration because of the steam plant in the middle of campus, which produces extra heat that could be used in the system, Nayler said.
Administrators and ComEd officials first discussed the possibility of a cogeneration plant in the mid-1990s when they were negotiating NU’s contract. University President Henry Bienen on Thursday said the short-term costs of building the plant outweighed the long-term benefits, so they scrapped the idea.
“In retrospect that was probably a mistake,” Bienen said.
Administrators took up the discussion again last October after a series of blackouts on the Evanston Campus.
A heavy concentration of construction in the middle of campus, as well as the need for another chiller for the new science buildings, swayed administrators to put the idea on the back burner for the time being, Bienen said.
“It just seemed to me it was too much disruption in the central part of campus,” Bienen said. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t think about it again, but I wouldn’t think about it this year.”
