Mike Pieper, Tanya McGrady discuss UND's new, efficient steam facility, build with no state funding and gains reduced emissions. Plus, Dave Thompson's news recap and Matt Olien's review.
UND/Grand Forks Steam Generation Facility
Key Points from Mike Pieper's Interview:
Old Steam Plant Challenges: UND's previous steam plant was 110 years old and faced issues due to age and deferred maintenance, posing a continuity risk.
Development of New Facility: Faced with no state funding, UND adopted a public-private partnership approach. A third-party engineering firm assessed the steam rate, leading to an adjusted rate to cover operation and renewal costs.
Financing: The facility's financing came from internal and external customer charges, without state funds. The transition from coal to natural gas reduced operational costs and increased efficiency.
Partnership with Johnson Controls (JCI): JCI's involvement ensured operational stability and future maintenance planning. The partnership aims for a facility condition that is like new at the end of the agreement.
Environmental Impact: The new plant reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 40,000 tons of CO2 annually, moving towards carbon neutrality.
Design Considerations: The design includes redundancy to ensure functionality even in extreme winter conditions. It supports not only UND but also external entities like Altru hospital.
Satisfaction with the Project: Mike expressed high satisfaction with the project, citing its efficiency and lack of business disruption despite harsh winter conditions.
Key Points from Tanya McGrady's Tour:
Control Room Operations: The main control room uses a PLC-based system for monitoring and controlling the plant.
Water Recycling: About 80% of the water used in the steam generation process is recycled.
Automation and Staffing: The plant is fully automated, requiring fewer staff compared to the old coal-fired system.
Integration with Campus: The new system was seamlessly integrated with existing campus infrastructure.
Redundancy and Capacity: The plant operates on a redundancy principle and is capable of expanding if needed.
Fuel Use and Efficiency: Natural gas is the primary fuel, with diesel as a backup. The system is more efficient in colder temperatures.
Year-Round Operation: The plant operates continuously to meet campus and external demands, including hot water needs.
In summary, the new steam generation facility at UND, developed through a public-private partnership and without state funding, represents a significant upgrade in efficiency, environmental impact, and operational stability. The transition to natural gas and the implementation of advanced automation and control systems have made the plant a state-of-the-art facility, contributing to UND's sustainability goals.
UND Steam Plant Interviews Transcript
Main Street
This is Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine. Pleased to be joined by the University of North Dakota Associate Vice President for Facilities, Mike Pieper. Mike, thank you very much for joining us on Main Street.
Mike Pieper, UND
Thanks for visiting UND.
Main Street
Happy to be here.
And by the way, it's a beautiful day, even though it's almost winter. Yeah, almost. We are here to look at the new steam generation facility, and we're gonna get a tour of that facility in just a little while.
But it's been open since 2021, Mike, and I wanna know how it's working out. Take us back to what the need was to develop this really high-tech facility.
Mike Pieper
Sure, we had a 110-year-old steam plant on really the south side of our historic academic quad. And it was challenging, you know, due to the age and deferred maintenance, to keep it up and running. You know, the staff that was over there did a phenomenal job of troubleshooting, finding foundries in Ohio to cast parts in order to keep some of the equipment going.
But it was a large continuity risk. And, you know, I go back to UND having to deal with the major flood and the disruption to students and sending students back in May. And I think that was always top of mind, that, you know, that's a situation that we don't wanna get caught in if we can avoid it.
And the fact that it gets a little bit cool in North Dakota and we need our steam in order to keep our buildings open. And it just became a high priority. And so we presented it to the board.
It actually even went to the legislature in a year where revenues were down and there was just no funding. So, you know, we looked at what was in policy, what kind of tools the state policymakers afforded us. We found the ability to do a public-private partnership.
And we started to just investigate, you know, is this a way to deal with our business continuity risk issue on maybe a quicker timeline in a way that we don't have to, you know, tap the state for resources? Because we had other academic needs that we'd prefer to kind of raise up for those types of resources.
Main Street
Break down the financing. It's surprising to me that literally no state funds were used to construct this important infrastructure facility.
Mike Pieper
Yeah, so how we operated the steam plant is we charge a steam rate, a utility rate to our customers. And we have internal customers and we have some external customers. And about five or six years prior to actually going down this path, we hired a third-party engineering firm to kind of come in and assess our rate.
Were we charging enough to operate it and to renew it? Because we felt like we must not be renewing it at the rate we should. And so they evaluated all our costs and said, no, you really are under charging for your CapEx or your capital renewal.
So there was an adjustment to the rate. And so when this came three, four years later, we felt like, one, we were gonna have to switch from burning Wyoming coal to natural gas just because of the permitting process on the eastern side of the state, everybody was saying it would be too difficult. And two, we, so that in and of itself has labor savings because it takes a lot more labor to keep the coal-fired boilers going than the natural gas.
Main Street
And that's what you used to have here.
Mike Pieper
Yep, and then we knew that a new plant was gonna be much more efficient. So there would be savings in the rate there. And then the unique thing that we did is we said, look, here's our opportunity to look at this over say a 35-year run.
Let's make sure that we're operating it correctly, we're maintaining it, we're setting money aside to do the capital renewal that we need to do. So we never find ourselves in a situation where we're at risk and things aren't being handled. So we bundled all that together and said, let's also look at deferred maintenance and energy savings out in the buildings.
And we found over a million dollars a year in savings out in the buildings. And the benefit of it was it was energy savings, but it was also some deferred maintenance on our mechanical system. So between this energy efficiency of the plant, the savings of how it was operated and efficiencies of building, we felt we could combine that and build a new plant and not spike our rate.
And that's how it worked out. So we were creative in that solution and kind of kept it within that range.
Main Street
How did Johnson Controls and your working with them impact how this was built?
Mike Pieper
Well, I mean, it was from the beginning. We went out and we did a public solicitation. We basically had two firms kind of come forward.
The University of North Dakota, I think, has been working with JCI for over a hundred years. They installed the first boiler on campus. And so there was some experience there.
And between the two kind of options we were looking at, one of the options that in higher ed that was happening is institutions were selling their central plants. And that was just something that we couldn't do. And so JCI was willing to work with us to help develop a solution and be a partner.
And so they brought the expertise to really dial in, how can we make this the most efficient possible? How can we make this operate and the maintenance? And they helped us look at it from a lifecycle basis and kind of work through the math, get to a point where we felt comfortable as partners to say, I think there's a project here.
And they worked at their own risk to do that. And once we said, okay, we really have a project, it'll work, we briefed it with leadership, we briefed it with the state board. And we said, we're jumping into a development agreement and we're gonna move forward.
And so what JCI has done now is they've really come in and they've stabilized the operation and maintenance. It was an area within my department that we really struggled to stay fully staffed. We weren't competitive in the industry.
We would get people, train some people, they may move to some of the larger power plants and things like that. So they came in, provided the expertise to operate it and maintain it, stabilize our labor pool over there. And then the other thing is worked with us so that we know we had money, five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road, built into our rate, accumulating those funds to reinvest in the plant.
And at the end of the agreement, we could choose to re-up our partnership because it's working well, or we could say, we wanna kind of go our own way. But that handoff is at a facility condition that is like new. And so then we're set up to do another 40-year run, knowing that we don't have to put another large capital investment into that.
Main Street
You talked, Mike, that this is a more efficient operation than your previous steam generation system was. In fact, you tout that it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 40,000 tons of CO2 annually. First, how do you measure that and quantify that for our listeners?
What does that mean?
Mike Pieper
I could give you some examples. I don't know if I had them with me, in front of me, but it's just quantifiable in terms of the formula BTU, output, and what your input is in terms of natural gas or coal. And we had a lot of coal ash and things that we had to dispose of.
And so the natural gas boilers are just a lot cleaner, a lot more, less carbon output, less waste to deal with. But yeah, it's a large impact. When post-project, and we've also been the benefit for a long time of having an energy takeoff agreement all the way with the Garrison Dam from when it was constructed.
So we use a lot of hydro, which is also very sustainable. And we analyzed where we were amongst other flagship and land grant universities. And the Navigant group came back and said, I believe that we were like number five or top five in that subgroup in terms of our sustainability when it comes to carbon neutrality.
So it's been something that's been top of mind for us really contractually since we've been getting hydropower. We've had to show that we use it in a very efficient way. And that's just carried over to our day-to-day operations.
So when we got to the new steam plant, it was just something that we knew we had to do.
Main Street
Of course, this part of North Dakota has remarkable winter conditions, very cold at times. And how did that impact the design of what we're going to see here in just a little bit at the steam generation plant?
Mike Pieper
I think one of the big things when we got into having the conversations was with the old plant and what it was providing and the changes on campus over the years, we kind of lost our best in class or recommended standard for redundancy. And so by building the new plant, we were able to build it at a scale that gave us the redundancy that we needed to protect all our assets. And so it's a natural gas-fired system with oil or diesel backup.
But we have, I believe it's 1.5% redundancy. And that's important not only for UND, but for the community because we provide steam to the Altru hospital and health system. And so we needed to make sure that whatever the conditions are, we would be up running and be able to provide the level of steam that we could.
And the project actually benefited in terms of conversations with Altru through the design, through their master planning, what they were doing, kind of rebalance. And we actually assisted them kind of with their redundancy so that we knew that we were in lockstep.
Main Street
You market this project as being state of the art. Can you give us some examples of what that means relative to the technology used for this plant?
Mike Pieper
Well, I'll probably leave it up to our JCI partner to talk a little bit more about the technology. But I think my biggest kind of aha moment was when we were sitting around the table working through this project, working with some of the best engineers in the world. And one of the engineers said, most of the times I work on a project where all of a sudden there's a number and we're all designing to get to that number.
And by at the end of the day, we're devalue engineering things out so that we can meet budget and move forward. And with this project, because it was a public private partnership, what we were looking at is what is in the best interest of the university for the next 40 to 80 years. We've been around that long.
We're gonna be around that long in the future. So let's make sure we do this right. And the way the partnership with JCI is, is if we cheapen the plant, it was gonna hurt from a maintenance and operation standpoint which then was gonna fall back on them.
And so the engineering team was saying, they really followed the math, followed the best in class engineering, invested in top of the line equipment where it penned out and it was gonna be in the best interest of both JCI and the university moving forward. And so I think just holistically, the plant was done in a very factual, you know, factual best in class engineering driven model. And it wasn't how can we do it for X dollars?
Because at the end of the day, we wanted what was the best value for the university. And I think you'll see that in the tour and you'll hear that in the comments of some of those things where we said, no, we need to do this because it's the right thing.
Main Street
So it's been in operation for a couple of years. On a scale from one to 10, I assume that you're very pleased with its functionality, its design and its execution.
Mike Pieper
Yeah, I mean, I was initially impressed with the schedule. It was an aggressive schedule and we were actually a little ahead of time in meeting it. So for me that removed that business continuity risk right away.
You know, we've had some Arctic temps for an extended period of time and you know, the plant has held up well. We've had really, from my point of view in terms of business disruption, we've had none. So very happy with it.
Main Street
Let's take a tour. All right, sounds good. All right, Mike Pieper.
He's the vice president for facilities at the University of North Dakota. Mike, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
And as we continue this segment on Main Street, I am pleased to be joined by Tanya McGrady. She's the customer business manager for Johnson Controls. Tanya, welcome to Main Street.
Tanya McGrady
Hi, thank you.
Main Street
We're gonna get a tour of this high-tech steam plant. It looks to me like we're in a control room. Let's start our tour here.
Tanya McGrady
Yeah, so this is our main control room and we have all the workstations are set up here to monitor every part of our process. And then from here, you can see the whole plant. We run on a PLC-based system.
What does that mean? It's a logic for running the controls of the plant.
Main Street
Okay, so what is done in here then? Is it just monitored or?
Tanya McGrady
Decisions are made here, very much so. Full monitoring of every part of the plant. The operators are able to do checks in here and they can make adjustments, do controls in here, answer alarms.
Main Street
Much of the water that's used to generate steam, you were telling me earlier, is recycled. What percent of water are you able to reuse?
Tanya McGrady
We bring back about 80% of our condensate return comes back at around 80%. So that means that we're only doing about 20% make-up, which is highly efficient for, this is not a closed system. We do have, there's places on campus that use steam that can't be returned, such as the hospital and humidification places, and then any work that is steam injected.
So the loss is quite low.
Main Street
Tell me what your role is with the University of North Dakota being a Johnson Controls employee.
Tanya McGrady
I just represent the Johnson Controls side for maintaining our agreement with the university and maintaining our obligations for this plant.
Main Street
Now, we're looking out into the plant at the first floor level. I see a lot of pipes, a lot of valves. Is most of this automated?
Most of this operation automated?
Tanya McGrady
Yes, so it's a fully automated system. The plant was done very well. It's really, it's always nice working in a new facility.
I've worked in ones that were not brand new and this is amazing here. All the piping is labeled and colored. There's, it's really easy to see what is what.
Main Street
Purple is natural gas, for example.
Tanya McGrady
And then here at our plant, we use yellow for steam. So any of the yellow lines, you know that's a steam line going out.
Main Street
Give me an idea of the number of folks required to run this plant, perhaps than used to be required here on campus with the coal-fired system.
Tanya McGrady
So I was not a part of the old plant here on campus. I know that we do bring shifts down to one man, like our overnight shift and stuff. We run a one-man shift, so that requirement is quite different than to start up or run a boiler that was coal-fired from the old plant you had.
You needed at least two or three people to maintain that.
Main Street
What else are we seeing?
Tanya McGrady
So the whole, when you come in here, you can see all five of our boilers and then our feed water input comes in from that side. You can see that. Our air compressors and stuff that control our valves to instrument air for running the system.
We have direct line of sight to that, which is helpful because they have lights on them and you need to be able to see that.
Main Street
Is it ever a challenge to have steam not freeze in this system? And how do you deal with that?
Tanya McGrady
No, not a challenge for the steam to not freeze here. The temp of the gas, the colder the gas is, the better it is for us.
Main Street
Does it burn more efficiently that way? Is that the reason?
Tanya McGrady
Well, it's more compressed and we get a better idea of how it is going into the boilers. Our meters measure it more accurately.
Main Street
So it's actually better in wintertime than it is, for example, in the summer. Does this plant run year-round?
Tanya McGrady
Yep, 24-7, 365 days. We don't shut down for anything.
Main Street
Why is it needed in summertime?
Tanya McGrady
Well, the campus still serves other customers and then it's used for hot water. Like at the Wilkinson Dining Facility, they use it for their cleaning and cooking. I don't believe there's any chillers on campus anymore, but it was once, there once was that used steam.
Main Street
I would assume though the demand for what is produced here is much greater in winter than it is in summer.
Tanya McGrady
Yep, so we have, the whole system is built on a N plus one, as Mike had mentioned before, there's the redundancy here. So at peak load for the system, we can run four boilers and we'll still have one spare. In the summertime, we run one boiler.
Today, right now, it's a fairly warm winter day for us and we only have two boilers running.
Main Street
How do you know the system was right-sized for the university and for its external customers?
Tanya McGrady
I believe what happened is they took a historical data over several years and calculated what the loads were, how that looked, what would be needed, and then did the plus one to it.
Main Street
With older buildings on campus, was it hard or easy to integrate this new steam generation system into what happens internally within a building?
Tanya McGrady
I think it was fairly seamless. They didn't have to change. There was modifications and improvements made, but nothing was changed for the purpose of running this plant.
So one, another nice thing is that the layout on our screens is very nice. It's pretty simple. Like if you come in here and you haven't seen this, the flow is accurate.
The pictures are fairly accurate of what you're gonna see. So you can, it then translates down to the floor.
Main Street
I see on this screen duct work with a fan that's moving air. I think I see where the boiler is. And then I think I see where the steam is exiting.
Tanya McGrady
Yep. The plant was also designed, should the university have the need for more steam for whatever reason, the plant was designed to be able to plug a new, a sixth boiler in. So there'll be, you'll see some open spots when we do our tour.
Be like, okay, we'll put another pump there, another boiler there, and the hookups and all the tie-ins are already there. So if that demand happens, it'll be an easy transition to do that. So we'll just go through the beginning and right outside the control room here, we have our water coming in from the city.
And that's what we use makeup water for. And that'll go up to a, we go through softeners to remove any hardness that's in the city water. And that'll come into this tank down here.
This is our condensate receiver. And what you see on the back wall behind it is our return from campus right next to the output of steam. So that's our product out, product in right there.
Main Street
So a lot more condensation is coming back when it's a lot colder and more steam is being generated than perhaps in summer when only one boiler is being offered. I wish I could provide an accurate description of size to our listeners of this condensation return, I guess, system, but it thousands, if not tens of thousands of gallons, I would assume.
Tanya McGrady
PA is the aerator and it removes the oxygen. We don't want oxygen in our boiler feed water because once that gets into the boiler, it'll cause it's hitting and damage the tubes. We pull high pressure steam off our header, put it through a reducing station, which is the loud noise, use it to help remove oxygen in our water.
We have a mud drum heater on the bottom of these that we keep on. It uses very minimal energy once it's warm. And then that's how it's able to be.
So now you got this hot boiler ready for fire.
Main Street
Right.
Tanya McGrady
So we'll come back down to the first floor and our DA is right there again, redundant so our whole plant at peak load can run off one instead of both those we rotate, our boiler feed water pumps. And you'll see, we have the slot open on the end for a six pump should we ever get a six boiler and that feeds the main feed water header, which is a full loop in the system. It goes all the way around the top up there.
And so just as boilers need it, those valves on those boilers will open and pull what they need. Each boiler has its own burner management system controls. And then another rack over there for all the instrumentation controls and the logic.
So what we're looking at here is the burner on the front, all the inputs for your gas or your diesel if we're running on diesel, they get lit. And these are D type water tube boilers. So you got your wind box here or your fire, your flame here and there's the tubes filled with water and they go up to the clean drum up top.
Main Street
So diesel is used for backup?
Tanya McGrady
That is our backup fuel source. So we run natural gas, but if there's an issue with the natural gas line or for whatever reason, and we need to have an alternate source, we use diesel. Again, since we have the redundant boilers, we can have one set up and ready to go if needed.
And then the switch over is just kind of like switching a normal boiler. Each boiler, again, full control from each station of the whole plant. So our operators are never left, you know, they need to get somewhere quick and they're out working.
They have immediate access to the controls. Here's where we'd be able to tie in a six boiler should we need it. And we currently are just occupying the space as a maintenance bay.
And you can see how your fire is burning. You can see, maybe there's something's a little out of balance. You can see it in the flame.
I believe the water is around 350 in there right now. This system right here that you see is a light pole that we heat with steam that we pull off from inside the plant. And this is just to heat our, for heating the fan coils for the air.
We have huge pressure units up on the third floor.
Main Street
Tanya McGrady is the customer business manager for Johnson Controls. Thanks for joining us on Main Street.
Tanya McGrady
Thank you for having me.
NOTE: AI was used to generate the transcript of these interviews. There may be errors. So, the audio is the official record.
