Conclusion (CHP)

At Princeton University, the campuses microgrid and cogeneration plant helped the campus remain active after Hurricane Sandy hit (Office of Sustainability).  “We designed it so the electrical system for the campus could become its own island in an emergency. It cost more to do that. But I’m sure glad we did” said Ted Borer, Energy Manager at Princeton University (Dillingham, 2016). 

Recommendation

After analyzing the social, technical, policy, economic, and environomental aspects, we have determined that due to the high potential benefits of Combined Heat and Power at Lafayette College, implementation of the integrated heat and energy system should be pursued. The technical, economic and environmental sections of this report, although inconclusive due to the lack of Lafayette College data, showed tremendous potential. While the political and social sections presented both supportive and deterring situations and politics that will act as supports and hurdles for CHP applications as it has in the past. The sections each produce varying recommendations that are important as CHP moves forward.

Conclusions and Next Steps

Social analysis showed that implementing CHP at Lafayette College is feasible, but it is heavily reliant upon student understanding, interest, and initiative, as well as available funds that need to be specifically geared towards updating our College’s facilities. We concluded that the feasibility will be directly dependent on the support by the Master Planning Committee. Moving forward support from the new sustainability coordinator and energy manager on campus will be key to gain support. As the campus moves forward with its expansion, it will be important to integrate CHP into the process.

The technical analysis concluded an initial recommended the prime mover, the generator, and the distribution grid configuration for implementation of CHP. Lafayette College is very close to having an operational Combined Heat and Power system technically. There are very few technical challenges/decisions to overcome. The next steps for the technical aspect of CHP will be finalizing the recommendation based for Lafayette College’s current system and energy and steam data.

The policy feasibility of CHP is dependent on actions from multiple spheres including federal, states, and institutional policy, incentivizing, and process regulation. Although there are some aspects that help promote CHP, it would be helpful to have more developed federal and state policies to stabilize the natural gas fuel market and to encourage higher efficiency standards in the grand scheme of our feasibility analysis. The influence of these policies is a moderate disadvantage relative to the important of key stakeholders at Lafayette. Within the Lafayette policy analysis, there are the energy policies and commitments in place that should support the installation of CHP.

The economic analysis concluded that based off the basic information available steam turbines would be the appropriate application for economic return. Shifting over to the new technology would lead to drops in annual costs, resulting in large savings or fictitious cash inflows. This analysis will need to be finalized for Lafayette’s College’s current system and energy and steam data.

Environmental context showed that Lafayette College could achieve several environmental benefits from implementing CHP at Lafayette College. The CHP is more efficient system that would potentially reduce emissions while also increasing Lafayette College’s responsibility on generation and consumption. Similarly, to the economic and technical analysis, the environmental benefits, including the Life-cycle Analysis and system efficiency, will need to be completed from Lafayette College’s current systems, energy and stead data. Additionally, Lafayette College should consider the many benefits of implementing a smart microgrid regardless of CHP.

Moving Forward

We hope that the analyses and recommendations presented in this report will help reignite the conversation around energy production at Lafayette College as the campus grows and changes over the next few years.