The Princeton Energy Plant The Princeton Energy Plant is a
district energy facility that provides electricity, steam, and
chilled water to power, heat, and cool the buildings on the
Princeton University campus. It is listed here in "Energy and
Environmental Projects" because it is in a constant state of
process improvement and mechanical upgrades happen quite often.
The creation of the plant and the continuous refinement of its
operation have had a very positive impact on Princeton's carbon
footprint. Princeton's carbon emissions reduction goal, as
stated in the Sustainability Plan, is to reduce emissions to
1990 levels by 2020. The plant has four main components: steam
boilers, water chillers, an electric generator, and a large
thermal energy storage system. (The TES is essentially a 2.6
million gallon tank of chilled water.) The plant boilers and
water chillers have capacities of 300,000 pounds of steam per
hour and 20,000 tons of cooling capacity, and 40,000 ton-hours
of storage capacity, respectively. The