In 2006,
West Chester University was gearing up for a major renovation of campus residence halls. But when the conversation came to a new heating and cooling system, it seemed foolish to only replace the central steam system in residence hall buildings without looking at the rest of campus. Replacing a historic campus' entire heating and cooling system would not be easy. But last week, West Chester announced a new grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for $4.7 million that will get the ball rolling on making it Greater Philadelphia's first completely geothermal campus.
"Our renovation plan gave us the opportunity to ask the question 'what is the most efficient way to heat and cool our buildings,'" says WCU Executive Director of Facilities Management Greg Cuprak. "We realized that, over a 10 year period of time, we had planned to renovate over 65 percent of our campus so we had to take it all the way."
Never one to miss a teachable moment, West Chester's Geology Department will be doing experiments as the digging of geothermal wells begins this spring. Students will be researching the differences between the WCU geoexchange system and other types of energy systems to ensure the campus is as efficient as it can be going forward.
"We expect to see a reduction in heating costs by 40 percent and a reduction in cooling by 20 percent," says Cuprak. "Before we started this thing, we were spending $2.6 million heating our campus and around $600,000 a year cooling our campus. So while this is not a short-term process but many years from now, when the last building is no longer being heated with fossil fuels, that is the type of savings you can expect."
Source: Greg Cuprak, West Chester University
Writer: John Steele