Carleton College, West Energy Station and Syngas Backup System

Project Description

Carleton College completed their final phase of the Utility Master Plan (UMP) project by removing the last remaining existing steam and condensate equipment, extending the hot water distribution system and upgrading the West Energy Station.  

Inside the West Energy Station, the existing steam boilers (2), piping, feedwater and fuel oil backup systems were removed. They were replaced with two new Fulton 6,000 MBH natural gas boilers that work in parallel with the three existing 6,000 MBH boilers that were installed in a previous phase. The existing fuel oil back up system was removed and replaced with a propane air blend synthetic gas system. This system installation included two new 30,000-gallon underground propane tanks, vaporizer and blender system. This provided the benefit of not only providing backup fuel source for the campus natural gas system, but also allowed the college to add infrastructure resiliency from a primary utility outage.

The campus infrastructure was also upgraded by removing approximately 2,000 linear feet of steam and condensate piping from the existing utility tunnels and replacing with new welded steel hot water distribution piping. This piping infrastructure connected the remaining eight buildings on campus with each building incorporating a building leak detection system using flow meters and control valves on both supply and return piping.  This final phase completed the new hot water distribution loop system for the entire campus allowing Carleton to continue to make advancements on their goal of carbon free by 2050.

Architect: Salas O’Brien

Location: Northfield, MN 

Completion: 2021