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| The geothermal pump house at Ball State (image via The Hagerman Group) |
We think of geothermal power, we think of geysers and bubbling, boiling waters that can be tapped for utility-scale electricity production.
But there’s a very different world of geothermal power, where onsite
implementation can yield water-heating and air heating and cooling, and
nowhere is it more clear than at Ball State University in Muncie,
Indiana.
There, the nation’s biggest ground-source, closed-loop geothermal heating and cooling system now is about to get bigger.
University trustees backed completion of
the second phase of a geothermal project that when completed – in 2015,
according to plans – will save $2 million a year while halving the
university’s carbon footprint as it continues to reduce its reliance on
old coal-fired boilers.
“We have written the book on large-scale geothermal installations,
and we already are seeing the cost savings from the project,” Randy
Howard, vice president for business affairs and treasurer, said in a
statement.
Systems like the one at Ball State make use of the stability of
Earth’s temperatures not far underground. In the winter, a geothermal
heat pump transfers available heat up; in the summer, the system
transfers heat underground.
To implement the first phase of the project the university drilled
1,800 boreholes around campus, each 4 to 5 inches in diameter and 400 to
500 feet deep. These holes, and the additional 1,800 needed for phase
two, were then covered, topped with parking lots and recreational
fields. One thousand miles of piping circulates water in a closed loop
system, and facilitates the heat transfer between the ground and the
buildings.The separate hot and cold pipe systems eventually pass through
heat exchangers and fans that blow either the hot or chilled air into
the buildings.
The second phase, which has already been under way, will double the
number of boreholes. The new appropriation will pay for that work as
well as modifications to accommodate new chillers, hot and chilled water
distribution looping and modifications of the remaining buildings to
accept the geothermal connections, the university said.
Ball State had been aiming to finish the geothermal project by March
2014 to meet EPA emissions regulations related to its boilers, but
needed $30 million to do the job. That funding finally came through
earlier this year.
According to the Ball State Daily News,
“The geothermal facilities will replace (a) World War I vintage
generation facility, which emits roughly 85,000 tons of carbon dioxide
annually.”
Syndicated from Earth Techling