Introduction (CHP)
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is a technological system that allows for the production of electricity and steam as a source of heating from one fuel source. Through this process, overall heat and power efficiency is maximized, saving users in operating expenses and creating a cleaner form of energy production for the environment. CHP is gaining popularity within green energy conversations because it reduces fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, and it is not limited to small-scale applications. In fact, CHP is more cost-beneficial in large-scale applications than in individual homes. Another benefit of this technology is the ability for users to be independent from the grid, which increases their power reliability and therefore their security. With this in mind, the technology is becoming increasingly popular among institutions that have a high power-demand and a need for a “zero downtime” reliability model. For example, St. Jude’s Hospital in Bethlehem, PA is strongly considering transitioning to a CHP model due to its critical need for reliable power 24/7. Higher education institutions have also started to implement CHP on their campuses’ because of the high power demand and heating networks required for student housing and educational facilities.
Lafayette College has considered CHP in the past, and as a result, our Senior Capstone group conducted a semester-long feasibility analysis to better understand what has prevented CHP from being implemented in the past and to identify the key changes that need to be made in order to advocate for this energy-efficient model. To thoroughly define the problem and research solutions, we, as a team of five, divided the project into five key contexts: social, technical, political, economic, and environmental/energy. Through course material and discussion in our Senior Capstone, we realized the importance of thinking about a problem from various, equally relevant perspectives which led us to approach our analysis in this way. Within each section, we started by interviewing faculty within various departments at Lafayette College including Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Facilities Operations, Planning, and Construction. From there, we sought additional research through a compilation of scholarly sources and governmental sites to aid us in the creation of a broader context of CHP. By using other schools and even nations as a source of comparison, we developed a deeper understanding of the way in which CHP is being received and adopted in other communities, and a launching point to determining just how feasible a CHP model would be on a campus of our size.
Problem Definition
Through information available to us online and from interviews with faculty, we connected the five different contextual analyses together through the core mission statements and goals posted by the College.
For context, the Lafayette’s mission statement states:
In an environment that fosters the free exchange of ideas, Lafayette College seeks to nurture the inquiring mind and to integrate intellectual, social, and personal growth. The College strives to develop students’ skills of critical thinking, verbal communication, and quantitative reasoning and their capacity for creative endeavor; it encourages students to examine the traditions of their own culture and those of others; to develop systems of values that include an understanding of personal, social, and professional responsibility; and to regard education as an indispensable, lifelong process.
The values, stated as subsets of the mission statement, include: diversity and inclusion, sustainability, and community engagement. In addition to these more permanent goals Lafayette’s present initiative is to expand the study body from 2,500 to 2,900 students. This requires a variety of changes that need to be made in student housing, dining halls, and in educational facilities in order to accommodate for the growth (Morse, 2016). While there are active environmental initiatives thriving at Lafayette, such as LaFarm, CHP has struggled to gain enough momentum to be a competitive initiative amongst these other pressing priorities due to its large-scale change model. Because we recognized that accomplishing a CHP model was too ambitious within our semester’s time restraint and our resources, the goal of our study was to create material to educate and raise awareness about the potential CHP has for our campus.
Section Overviews
We lead our report with our social analysis, recognizing that this was where we would identify our audience and the key stakeholders at Lafayette. To identify the root of the problem CHP is facing, we asked ourselves what key factors influence the administration’s decision-making throughout each of our five contextual analyses. In addition to understanding the history of CHP conversations at the College, we went straight to our school’s mission statement and used it as a benchmark within our social analysis to determine whether CHP stands in the prioritization of change on campus. This initial section also looks outside of Lafayette and studies how state and federal committees and environmental activists might enhance CHP conversations on campus.
Following the social analysis, we shifted our focus to the technical analysis to gauge what kind of infrastructural changes would need to be made to shift to a CHP model. This analysis holds a lot of weight in our conclusion of how feasible this new technology would be because it addresses ease of implementation and offers different types of CHP depending on demand. This section is divided into sections that look at Lafayette’s current infrastructure, define the technology associated with CHP, explain the infrastructural pieces needed, and conclude with a statement about the difficulties that the facility operations team might experience under the proposed transition.
In addition to the way our social analysis analyzed political dynamics at the College and in our surrounding governments, our policy analysis also evaluated the political environment from a legislative perspective. The section includes considerations of federal and state policies, in addition to the environmental commitments and designated decision-making processes at Lafayette. In addition to environmental initiatives within the different levels of legislation, this section also addresses the instability of the natural gas fuel market that has been a roadblock in past conversations, both at Lafayette and in other contexts. Key areas for increasing political traction and positively influence the feasibility at Lafayette are identified and further explained in our economic analysis.
The economic analysis was another section that was predicted to be one of the key indicators of our feasibility analysis results. This section further discusses the volatility of the natural gas market, estimates costs throughout various CHP technology’s useful life to complement the Technical Analysis based largely on governmental data, and concludes with a cash-flow analysis for a complete discourse on the economic feasibility for CHP.
In the fifth analysis we considered how CHP affects the environmental footprint and energy measures. It breaks down the environmental impact of CHP and Lafayette’s current energy consumption into a life-cycle analysis, an efficiency analysis, and infrastructural management analysis. From these understandings, we then considered what the environmental implications of moving to a CHP model would be on a technical and cultural level.
Challenges
Throughout all of our studies, the most common challenge across the board was our lack of access to data by the College. While we did have the opportunity to interview faculty that have been active in past CHP dialogues, the majority of quantitative data and statistics available to us is from a previous energy study conducted by Lafayette back in 2012. Because of the nearly five year absence of information available to the public, our evaluations were, at times, limited to explaining how to best determine feasibility in future work, rather than actually being able to run current numbers. The economic, technical, and environmental analyses were most affected by this lack of available information as it left worthwhile calculations up to estimation.
However, as previously stated, the objective of this study was essentially to educate and inform. Knowing that the data will change as the school’s infrastructure and facilities age and expand, there is value in the way we documented these analyses as suggested procedures for future action.
Results
Contrary to our initial hypotheses, our analysis of the technical, economic, and environmental aspects of CHP were not the areas that swayed our results in our feasibility analysis. Because we concluded in each of these sections that the feasibility of CHP from these perspectives is high, we were able to identify that the weight of this decision falls to the political constructions and social conversations within the school, and across the nation. While we concluded that our federal, state, and institutional policy is supportive of the growth of CHP, the political dynamics at a social level have restrained CHP from becoming a high priority for key decision-makers at Lafayette. We believe that the majority of this is due to a lack of awareness and education surrounding the conversation and the economic and environmental benefit this technology could bring to the Lafayette campus. Our goal in distributing our report is to increase this awareness among key stakeholders at the College and to make information about this initiative accessible to faculty and students. Overall, for CHP to gain momentum, their needs to be a better understanding of CHP throughout the Lafayette community; and in conducting this analysis, we hope to help further that understanding.