Annual Energy Savings: $3.64 million. Annual Water Savings: 28 million gallons.

NORESCO implemented energy infrastructure and energy-efficiency improvements for the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, saving an estimated $36 million in the first 10 years of operation alone. The Company upgraded the medical center's 25-year-old cogeneration plant to improve reliability and save nearly $2.3 million annually in energy costs.

NORESCO also upgraded equipment in eight buildings, enhancing the medical center's bottom line by another $1.3 million annually. The project required no expenditure of capital funds by the medical center, because the total estimated operating-cost savings of $3.63 million annually will pay for the nearly $30 million in equipment upgrades under two Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs).


Location: Worcester, MA

Project Cost: $30 million

Annual Cost Savings: $3.63 million

Water Savings: 28 million gallons

Project Type:

NORESCO is increasing the capacity of the cogeneration plant. The Company also improved the chilled water and cooling systems, upgraded the energy management system (EMS), improved domestic and process water system, upgraded ventilation systems, added premium-efficiency motors and installed more efficient lighting.

NORESCO is training facilities staff members who assumed responsibility for maintaining the improved systems. The Company is continuing to monitor, measure and verify the savings.

Facility Description:

Hospital and medical school for University of Massachusetts; 8 buildings including medical, research, educational, administrative, day care and storage facilities; 1.7 million square feet plus parking areas.

Contract Term:

Phase I: 10-year ESPC

$1.25 million
Massachusetts Electric rebate

Phase II:

20-year ESPC

Financing:

Financing arranged by NORESCO. The project will pay for itself through energy-cost savings. After the contract period, the entire $3.63 million a year will accrue to the medical center.

Installation Period:

Phase I: Winter 1997-Winter 1999

Phase II: Winter 1997-Winter 2001


Project Summary

Among other benefits, the project featured nearly $7 million worth of Phase I energy-efficiency improvements, including:

· Upgrading the chilled-water cooling system with air handling, steam humidifier and air balancing improvements and eliminating the chilled water bypass

· Upgrading the EMS and retrofitting it with more sophisticated controls and logic

· Improving ventilation by converting the air handling units in the medical school wing to a dual-duct variable air volume system and saving additional electricity by installing variable frequency drives

· Conserving domestic and process water with new low-flow toilets, a new reverse osmosis demineralized water system and redesign of cooling water flow for the refrigeration system

· Upgrading 134 motors (totaling 5,000 horsepower) with new premium-efficiency models

· Replacing or retrofitting over 27,000 fixtures with energy-efficient units

Phase II, upgrading the energy infrastructure, mitigated the medical center's costly dependence on electric utilities. The new cogeneration plant is about 43 percent more fuel-efficient than the original steam turbine system, and generates electricity at a lower cost than purchased electricity under standard utility rate tariffs

The project involved repowering the existing 5-MW topping-cycle cogeneration plant to double its capacity to 10 MW. Although the plant is capable of powering the entire campus, the university uses it to produce, on average, 75 percent of its total electrical usage. The plant has black-start capability and can operate isolated from the grid, if necessary, to provide emergency power for the hospital in case of a utility power failure.

The project included:

· Installing two new low-emissions, dual-fuel boilers (rated at 115,000 pounds of steam per hour each) to generate high-pressure steam (1,100 psig and 850 degrees F) to power the new back-pressure steam turbine. (One of the plant's original low-pressure boilers remains in operation.)

· Adding a 5-MW back-pressure steam turbine generator to deliver electricity at 13.8 kilovolts (to match the plant's existing electrical distribution system and avoid the expense of a new step-down transformer) and provide steam exhaust pressure of 250 psig (that powers two existing extraction/condensing 2,500-kW steam turbine generators, chillers, boiler feed water pumps and draft fans)

· Installing a new pressure reducing and desuperheating station to handle excess steam during periods of high thermal load and limited electrical load

· Adding a new steam dump condenser for periods of low thermal load

· Installing a new 1250-kW emergency diesel generator as a redundancy and backup measure

· Installing a new 5,000-ton steam-driven chiller that uses extraction steam from existing turbines and brings the plant's total cooling capacity to 12,500 tons. The 50 psig extraction steam also heats space and domestic water throughout the campus

· Installing a boiler plant master control system

· Performing structural work, including construction of a 3,900-square-foot addition

Customer Comments

"Our inflexible need to provide highly reliable power, distributed steam heating and chilled water to a diverse campus such as UMass Medical, required us to take a good hard look at our aging and inefficient energy infrastructure. We are expanding our campus and our services at a time when energy is in increased demand and market pricing is volatile. NORESCO's balanced and innovative energy solutions have allowed us to reduce our energy consumption across the campus and ensure improved power reliability 365 days of the year."

- University of Massachusetts Medical Center Director of Facilities Management, Tim Fitzpatrick