University at Buffalo NYSERDA South Campus Energy Study

The University at Buffalo engaged Wendel to develop a Clean Energy Master Plan for the south campus. The campus comprises 46 buildings and includes laboratory, medical, and academic facilities. The objective of the master plan was to provide an actional roadmap to a zero-carbon energy system.

Wendel’s team reviewed drawings, interviewed facility and utility staff, and surveyed building equipment, energy distribution systems, and central plant equipment. Wendel performed assessments on age and estimated remaining useful life for critical system components.

Wendel is working with the University to develop concepts for both energy conservation retrofits and replacement of existing central plants, utility distribution systems, and conversion to a zero fossil fuel energy system. In general, the program will replace steam boilers with condensing hot water boilers and heat recovery heat pumps, interconnect buildings into clusters using a Generation 4 low-temperature hot water heating system, and then connect clusters together using a Generation 5 neutral temperature loop. The loop will be scalable and, over time, will interconnect to geothermal well fields, and data centers. This will ultimately phase out the use of fossil fuel boilers. Autoclaves, domestic hot water systems, and other process steam loads will be converted to electric-based equipment over time.

Wendel’s final deliverable will include utility energy modeling, thermal modeling of individual buildings, preliminary concept drawings, field surveys of equipment, equipment selection, bulletized scope of work, Sankey charts showing before and after energy usage and sources, life cycle cost analysis, financial projections, and phasing recommendations over the next 20 years.