Ball State is building the nation's largest geothermal heating and cooling system.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/Kcflood
MUNCIE, Ind. -- On an unusually warm day on the campus of Ball State University, Jim Lowe is giving a tour of the campus's huge, half-completed geothermal system.
Lowe, the director of engineering, construction and operations for Ball State, peppers his explanation of closed-loop systems, chilling stations and boreholes with banter on college basketball games and the history of the school, founded by the makers of Ball canning jars.
"The irony is, they came here for the natural gas," said Lowe, of the university's founders' arrival to Indiana to take advantage of the fuel for glassmaking. "And now we're using it for renewable energy."
Ball State is building what will be in 2014 the largest district heating and cooling ground-sourced geothermal facility in the United States (ClimateWire, May 29, 2009). Completion of the first phase will allow the university to shut down two of its four coal-fired boilers, cutting carbon emissions in half.
The new system will avoid emitting approximately 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide, as well as 1,400 tons of sulfur dioxide, 240 tons of nitrogen oxide, 200 tons of particulate matter and 80 tons of carbon monoxide. The switch will save Ball State $2 million per year and shelter the university from U.S. EPA's upcoming Boiler MACT regulations for hazardous air pollutants.
Today, the university will announce the unveiling of the second phase of the project with recorded speeches from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar (R) and a keynote speech by noted renewable energy advocate Amory Lovins, chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Other schools are interested
Geothermal systems generate energy thanks to the laws of thermodynamics: Thermal energy -- or heat -- will flow from higher-temperature to lower-temperature objects. In this case, water flows through vertical pipes running underground. In summer, the earth pulls heat out of the water. The resulting chilled water is used in air conditioning systems throughout campus. In the winter, the cold ground creates the opposite effect: It warms water for renewable heat and hot water systems.
The vertical, closed-loop district system -- meaning the warm and cool water it makes does not make contact with naturally occurring groundwater -- will connect nearly 3,600 boreholes, 500-foot narrow vertical wells with loops of pipes surrounded by grout. The boreholes cover 25 to 40 acres, buried under an old soccer field, parking lots and other green fields.
The first phase began in May 2009 and became operational last November. In the second phase, the university will install 780 boreholes of the remaining 1,800 and will build a new energy station with two 2,500-ton heat pump chillers and a hot-water loop around the south portion of campus. Eventually, the system will bring heat to more than 5.5 million square feet.
The system will provide air conditioning and heating for 47 buildings on campus.
"We just keep adding to the piping the system and expanding those loops," said Lowe of the simplicity of expansion.
The influence has expanded, as well, said Lowe. Representatives of 28 colleges and universities have come to see Ball State's system. Cornell University plans to build one on its Roosevelt Island campus by New York City. Even "hardcore coal" state universities like the University of Kentucky are looking to geothermal for their residence halls.
A group of representatives from Stanford University, which is investing $438 million to overhaul its utilities, came to Muncie recently to observe the building of the facility.
"Stanford is doing something along the similar lines," said Joe Stagner, director of sustainability and energy management at the university. "We're in a position make major changes to an existing systems [and] combine the best in economics and environmental stewardship."
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5 Comments
Add CommentG.W. Bush has had the same system at his ranch in Texas for years...it's a great idea and saves a ton of money!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe public utility I work for is offering pretty substantial incentives to home owners to go geothermal. It has payed off with an actual drop in summer and winter peak energy use, which is when energy costs spike. The savings are good enough to cover the costs of the incentive program.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost so called geothermal systems do not directly heat or cool buildings. What they (and from the description I assume that's the case with Ball State) do is provide a small amount of preheating or precooling of the supply input.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat this means is the geothermal heated or cooled liquid is placed in close proximity to the main supply in a heat exchanger so that the municipal water feed is heated or cooled before entering the boiler or a/c unit.
The building is _not_ heated or cooled by this process. The energy needed by the boiler to heat the untreated water supply is reduced by the amount of heat transferred to it by the geothermal system. If the geothermal system reduces the main supply's amount of required temperature change from 50 degrees to 40 degrees change it still has to be processed to a 40 degree change. This improves the efficiency of the system and reduces the cost of operation but it definitely does not on its own heat or cool the building.
The question that arises is: do the savings from the preheating or precooling of the main supply justify the expense of the total lifetime cost of operation of the geothermal system?
I don't know enough about Ball State's system to say but generally it's only economical when dealing with new construction. The article describes a retrofit so I doubt that it pays for itself especially since if it did I'm sure Ball State would be telling us all about the economics of it rather than the look at what we did factor.
Hey northerguy - this is a lot cooler than you think. While some systems just use ground temp to "pretreat" water - the majority of Geothermal systems are based on heat pump technology. There is some outside energy needed (e.g. electricity to run fans, pumps, compressors motors) but the large majority of total energy (Btus)needed for HVAC loads comes from using the ground as a source (or sink). The net imported energy to the site is vastly reduced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are systems that are genuinely full geothermal processes but it seems to me that there are very few that have been installed after construction of the building. I doubt if there are any that have been done in that fashion and are or could be economical. (in north america, at least).
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