Ohio State has many plans for construction projects. One thing for certain is the new buildings will need electricity, heat, air conditioning, water and compressed air.

All the new buildings could lead to an eight to10 percent increase in energy consumption, said Wally Griffin, director of utilities at OSU.

These new energy demands require the McCracken plant, OSU’s electric and steam generating facility, to undergo a $73 million renovation project.

McCracken’s capacity is limited to 84,000 kilowatts per hour of electricity and 500,000 pounds per hour of steam.

“That sounds like a lot, but it would not be enough for all the new buildings being constructed at OSU unless people want their power rationed or rotating blackouts,” said Henry Dammeyer, technical director of utilities.

The renovations will provide the plant with four new boilers and low nitrogen oxide burners, as well as new electrical gears for the plant’s two substations. The substations are used to transform electricity purchased from American Electric Power down to a usable voltage for buildings on campus. A new substation will also be built over the parking lot along the east side of Tuttle Park across from the stadium.

The renovations will increase McCracken’s capacity to around 120,000 kilowatts per hour of electricity and 710,000 pounds per hour of steam.

Because the plant can’t be shut down for the renovations, Dammeyer said the project will be like trying to fix a car while somebody’s driving it.

Dammeyer said computers are one of the highest consumers of energy.

“First of all they draw electricity to operate, and some of that is emitted as heat,” he said. “Computers alone, or little space heaters as I like to call them, force us to run 540 tons of air conditioning through campus buildings every winter, even when the temperature is near zero degrees outside. This is equivalent to the amount of air conditioning used by 180 houses during the summer.”

The renovations, which will significantly increase the plant’s production capacity, forced it to go through the New Source Review program of the Clean Air Act. This means the plant had to calculate its current emissions and what they will be like after the project.

In 1999 the plant’s emissions totaled 2.3 tons of volatile organic compounds, 428 tons of nitrogen oxide, 293 tons of sulfur dioxide, 135 tons of carbon dioxide and 24 tons of particulate matter, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

“Our models have shown that the new boilers’ design and the low nitrogen oxide burners will reduce our emissions and improve our efficiency from 72 to 83 percent,” Dammeyer said. The four boilers being replaced were installed between 1946 and 1961.

McCracken’s emissions are low because it is a comparatively small plant that primarily burns natural gas. Every year the plant spends around $8 million on natural gas, $4 million on coal and $14 million on electricity.

“A lot of students wonder where their student fees go, but we are actually one of the lowest cost operations in the Big Ten, at $395 a year per student,” Dammeyer said.

Work on the substations will begin in August, and the boiler work will begin in 2004. The whole project is scheduled to be completed by 2007.

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