US Campuses Dig for Geothermal Energy

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Geothermal just makes sense, where it makes sense. With only 5 buildings done out of the planned-for 18 to be upgraded to geothermal, the Theological Seminary in New York City already saved $200,000 in energy costs in the last year. A lot of schools, like Ball State University in Indiana, are building geothermal. BSU, with the charge led by SCUPer Bob Koester, is upgrading all 45 of its buildings and will save $2M per year. And dozens of schools are collected their portion of hundreds of millions of dollars in related federal grants, for construction and research.

So far this year, the Department of Energy has announced $400 million in grants to advance geothermal projects like those under way on a handful of campuses.

Geothermal technology has been around for decades, it works and it's increasingly affordable. At colleges that must maintain dozens of large buildings, the savings are magnified.

Those involved in the decision to pursue geothermal technology say they wanted to use less coal-fired power, although the schools also had to save money to justify the move.

Understanding More About Geothermal Systems

Even if you're not in facilities planning, you may want to be a bit more knowledgeable about "geothermal." If that's the case, this brief article by Bill Johnson (PDF), from Facilities Manager, is for you.

[T]he rising cost of energy has your institution focused on improving energy efficiency on campus. Now it’s up to you and your fellow campus facility managers to create mitigation strategies. One such strategy might be right there under your feet. Ground source geothermal energy enables us to tap into the earth’s stored renewable energy for heating and cooling facilities. Proper application of ground-source geothermal technology can have a dramatic impact on the efficiency and financial performance of building energy utilization (30%+). At the same time, using this alternative energy resource can provide significant contributions to an institution’s carbon reduction goals. How can you take advantage of this potential energy source to meet campus carbon footprint reduction goals, capital budgets, and return on investment?

This article reviews the state-of-the-practice and the kinds of engineering and programmatic expertise that are required to properly scale geothermal applications up to the institutional level and provide optimized benefits. Some pitfalls of poorly-designed systems are described, and approaches to avoid these are presented. But first, the big picture on geothermal systems.