Issue date: 6/5/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Fred Lambuth [Click to enlarge]

The water tower, power plant stack and plumes of water vapor that rise above the Central Utilities Plant are recognizable parts of the College Station skyline. Students, though they walk by the Central Utilities Plant every day on the way to class, know little of the work that goes on there.

"Twenty years ago when I first started working here, students walked through all of the equipment and still didn't know what goes on here," said Darryl Petersen, Supervisor for Utilities Environmental Services. "Before we had a wall."

The Central Utility Plant supplies electricity, cooling and heating to the Texas A&M Campus. Natural gas-fired steam turbines supply about 5 percent of the University's power supply. Cold water is circulated in a closed loop around campus, supplying cooling to every building on campus. The water also serves to cool heavy machinery.

Petersen said that the employees at the Utilities are working hard to create innovative ways to save the University money.

In the 1980s, when Petersen worked for the plant as an undergraduate student at A&M, most of the University's electricity needs were generated there. Today, A&M purchases its electricity from outside sources because until recently, natural gas was less expensive.

However, with the rising cost of electricity, Aggies might soon see the plant take a central role in energy production again. Peterson said that staff will recommend increasing power production if studies show that producing power will once again become more economic than buying from outside sources.

"We've done a lot to save the University energy, especially now with increased energy prices," Peterson said. "The state won't just give us more money so we have to be really creative with the energy savings."

The plant has a recent history of working with students as well. Hillary Holmes, civil engineering major, class of 2009, conducted an undergraduate research project on sustainability at the Central Utilities Plant.

"Electricity is generated using steam turbines to boil water. 150,000 gallons of water is released every day from different systems processes," Holmes said. Her project explored new methods of capturing that water and reusing it for irrigation on the golf course and the Bonfire Memorial.

"The Utilities people were really helpful during my research," Holmes said. "They know Texas A&M like the back of their hand. They can tell you anything about any building on campus. A good chunk of them graduated from Texas A&M."

Holmes said as an engineer, the equipment that fascinates her most is the cooling towers.

"My freshman year I didn't know what they were. My friends and I used to call it the 'cloud factory.'" Holmes said. "Now I know that the 'clouds' come from a heat-transfer process to release heat from the closed-loop water cooling system."

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