by Rebecca Walker — November 25, 2009—Honeywell has announced a $79 million renewable energy and building retrofit program with Eastern Illinois University (EIU) in Charleston, Illinois. The program, which combines energy-efficient facility upgrades with one of the largest biomass-fueled heating plants on a university campus, will help EIU address deferred maintenance, improve its infrastructure, and save approximately $140 million in energy and operating costs over the next two decades, says Honeywell.
EIU will finance the improvements and use the savings, guaranteed by Honeywell through a 20-year performance contract, to pay for the work. As a result, the program will not place a burden on the university’s budget, or require additional taxpayer dollars or student fees.
The upgrades will impact all facilities on the 320-acre campus, and significantly curb the university’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The focal point of the program is the construction of a new steam plant on the southeast corner of campus that will be driven by two large biomass gasifiers, the first application of this technology in the region. The plant will use wood chips sourced from the local logging industry to generate steam and heat buildings on campus. And it will replace the university’s aging steam plant, which is inconveniently located in the center of campus, consumes more than 10,000 tons of coal per year and requires constant maintenance.
Through biomass gasification, the wood chips are heated in an airtight, oxygen-deprived chamber until they break down to create a synthetic gas that burns similar to natural gas. The gas is then used to fire the boilers, giving the university a carbon-neutral solution for heating its facilities. As a result, all of the steam heating load for the university will be met through a renewable resource.
EIU chose the biomass system based on input from the Honeywell Renewable Energy Scorecard, a first-of-its-kind selection tool that analyzes location-specific details to pinpoint the technology with the most significant environmental and economic drivers.
As part of the new plant, Honeywell will also install a small turbine that uses excess steam to produce electricity. The turbine is expected to generate more than 2.9 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, reducing the amount of energy the university purchases from the grid and providing another environmentally friendly energy source.
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