What's up with those power plants on campus?

You may have seen fenced off buildings with small towers poking out in various places around campus. These plants are responsible for 40% of the University’s power! The Energy and Climate committee was lucky enough to get an inside tour of what goes into meeting the university’s energy demand.

Leading the tour was the University of Arizona’s Energy Manager, Mike Hoffman. Hoffman explains that the University has 22 water chillers, 3 power plants, and one of the biggest ice storages in the country.

If you were to look around campus, you’ll notice the lack of electrical wires that you normally see powering buildings. These wires are there, but underground. The University of Arizona has an extensive tunnel system that stretches across campus. However, these extensive tunnels are not accessible to the public and you’ll have to get a tour with Mike Hoffman himself.

There are 3 ice chillers on campus and they make ice at night, which will be used to cool the air in the buildings on campus. When you are freezing in the library at 3 AM or escaping the heat in the beginning of the fall semester, you can thank the ice storage. This is an alternative to more orthodox and energy expensive methods used elsewhere for air conditioning. The plant produces 375,000 pounds of steam every year. What demands this amount of steam? Well, most of it goes to a multitude of labs across campus.

Despite the impressive capabilities of the plants on campus, 60% of UA’s power usage comes from Tucson Electric Power (TEP). Fiscally speaking, the university used 240MW hours in the year of 2018. Hoffman explained that at the end of 2020, the power we buy is going to be strictly from solar and wind powered means.

Despite having approximately 286 days of sunshine in Tucson, only 2% of UA’s on campus energy is solar. A seemingly easy solution would be to invest in more solar panels. One good place would be parking lots. Unfortunately, every surface parking lot has been programed for future building developments and that means administration is less likely to add solar panels on these lots. Currently, the only way to promote more sustainable methods, like solar panels, is by putting pressure on the University for these practices.