Lakeville, CT – O&G Industries, Inc. was contracted by the Hotchkiss School and is nearing completion of its new 16,500sf Biomass heating facility. The new central heating facility will utilize wood chips in lieu of fossil fuel to support the school’s steam and hot water demands of the entire campus. Greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by one third to one half, compared to the oil-fired boiler plant it replaces.
Designed by van Zelm Engineers and Centerbrook Architects, the plant consists of two Messersmith Biomass Boiler Units and a 17,500 cubic foot storage bin capable of supplying a week’s worth of fuel. An oil fired boiler serves as further backup. With its low profile and curved, sloping green roof, the new building blends with its surrounding landscape.
David Madigan, PE, LEED AP, and principal at van Zelm, states that the two biomass boiler units, operating at 82% efficiency, can generate 14 million BTUs per hour in the form of 60 psi steam. The units will burn waste wood acquired from sustainably harvested, FSC (Federal Stewardship Council) certified local forests, replacing some 150,000 gallons of fuel oil per year and saving approximately 95% of the campus heating requirements. 5400 tons of wood chips will be burned by the School annually. Waste ash from the combustion is collected for use as a fertilizer, and an electrostatic precipitator will remove over 95% of particulate matter from emissions. The 48-foot chimney will disperse emissions into prevailing winds, reducing ground-level impact to almost zero.
The project includes extensive buried steam/condensate and hot water piping to convert the new plant to the existing campus steam distribution system as well as the hot water heating plant for the Mars Athletic Center.
Biomass heating is expected to reduce Hotchkiss’s carbon footprint by more than six million pounds of carbon dioxide per year. One of only three LEED certified power plants in the country, the new central heating facility attests to the Hotchkiss School’s commitment to becoming a carbon-neutral campus by 2020. The building will also serve this independent boarding school of nearly 600 students in grades 9 thru 12, as an educational mission, exposing its technologies and wood structure.
Tours along the mezzanine balcony allow students and community groups to overlook the boiler room and examine wall-mounted charts and maps and interactive computer consoles that track performance data. Outside the plant, a nature path affords up-close views of the serpentine shaped green roof and a stroll through the new rain gardens, bio-swales and nearby wetlands.
Jefferson B. Riley, Centerbrook partner in charge of the project explained that they wanted a building that would, at once, establish itself as an iconic, seminal, biomass building and, more or less, disappear into the landscape in sympathy with nature. The building’s vegetated roof combines with the bio-swale/rain garden system to absorb rainwater and filter run-off, and is just one of its many sustainable features. Others include a renewable, laminated wood structural system; water-conserving plumbing features; use of local materials with a high recycled content; highly efficient mechanical systems, lighting systems and exterior skin; and an abundance of daylight.
Hotchkiss School BioMass Facility Nears Completion – vanZelm Engineers Interior System Designer, O & G Industries GC, Centerbrook Designs Core and Shell
Lakeville, CT – O&G Industries, Inc. was contracted by the Hotchkiss School and is nearing completion of its new 16,500sf Biomass heating facility. The new central heating facility will utilize wood chips in lieu of fossil fuel to support the school’s steam and hot water demands of the entire campus. Greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by one third to one half, compared to the oil-fired boiler plant it replaces.