Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Physical Plant
Carbondale, Illinois
Intern: Alex Singleton
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Founded in 1969 as the state’s second teacher college, Southern Illinois
University Carbondale (SIUC) now has 11 colleges and schools. The university
is also home to over 20,000 students and 5,400 faculty members. SIUC’s
physical plant provides heating, cooling and some electricity for the campus.
This includes a power plant that consumes nearly 50,000 tons of coal a year.
The intern was tasked with aiding the plant operators in finding the most
efficient combination of boilers to meet energy demand throughout the day and
week. This project involved utilizing software programs that model steam production
to determine what conditions drive campus steam load. The student also considered
current fuel contracts to analyze real time pricing of the boiler units.
Results:
The intern created a software program that can model steam production based
upon online weather data. This program would provide the plant operators with
a set of cost effective scenarios to run the boiler system throughout the year.
It would not be necessary to pay a license fee to purchase software since the
boiler dispatch system was designed with a Microsoft Excel program. The intern
used data from 2008 to estimate the amount of savings that would have been
achieved had the software program been available. The estimated savings were
over $380,000. This software can also be used as a design tool for any future
additions to the physical plant.
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