A major underground project at Bellingham’s waterfront could help upgrade Western Washington University’s heating system, a 75-year-old mammoth steam plant responsible for 97% of the university’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The project, an underground district heating system designed to heat and cool new construction, is in the works at Bellingham’s waterfront after years of planning, design and development from the Port and City of Bellingham. Sometime in the future, it could provide heating and cooling for the university, too, proponents say, although that would require a pipe connecting hillside Western to the city waterfront.
District heating systems — popular, low-emission heating and cooling apparatuses in big cities like Seattle, New York City and Copenhagen — work by connecting buildings with underground pipes that can then transfer heat from one structure to the next. The system at Bellingham’s waterfront will heavily rely on waste energy, redirecting existing heat or excess energy into the buildings.
That excess heat has to come from somewhere, and port officials, state legislators and private utility companies have their eyes on the steam column at Puget Sound Energy’s Encogen Plant. During regular operations, the plant emits massive amounts of steam, often visible across Bellingham. In that steam, developers say, is enough waste energy to heat the waterfront development, the university and much of the city.
The project will be able to heat and cool the entire waterfront development: 1.6 million square feet, but with the “potential to grow it beyond that,” said Jeff Giffin, a regional manager at CORIX Utilities, the group partnered with the port to develop and manage the district system. “The amount of waste energy that’s available from PSE when they’re running has the potential to heat half of Bellingham.”
CORIX is still in negotiations with PSE about purchasing the waste heat from the plant, but both utilities expressed support for continued cooperation and development this week.
Giffin estimated the system would be fully functional for the waterfront development in October this year. The system, though, is modular and can be expanded until the entire city relies on it.
“We can add capacity as time goes on and the system grows,” Giffin said. “One of the goals of building a sustainable community is having a sustainable heating and cooling system.”
A citywide district heating system is still years, if not decades, away, but current legislators hope to advance low-emission heating and cooling in the Washington state Legislature this session.
“District heating systems are systems that work in downtown areas all over the country,” said Rep. Alex Ramel, whose district includes parts of Whatcom, Skagit and San Juan counties. “This is a system that could, over time, connect to buildings around downtown Bellingham and reduce both our greenhouse gas footprint and also the operating costs for those businesses.”
Ramel proposed district heating system legislation this year, encouraging 15 state-owned colleges and universities like Western to explore joining these local low-emission systems. House Bill 1390, introduced in February, calls on state-owned facilities, including correctional facilities and colleges, to upgrade heating and cooling systems through districts, rather than building-by-building.
“The waste heat from the Encogen power plant is more than enough to heat not just the waterfront, but when it’s operating, it could heat all of Western Washington University,” Ramel said. “We can support a significant portion of the energy load of the campus with energy that is currently being vented to the sky.”
Western’s heating system is almost a century old and operated as a natural gas steam plant. It’s a major piece of the university’s infrastructure, and in desperate need of an update.
Last July, the university completed a major feasibility study, evaluating options to modernize and replace the system, said Avinash Rahurkar, Western’s associate vice president of facilities development and operations.
“The steam plant uses antiquated systems to run the boilers that require substantial upkeep, and finding both replacement parts and technicians to perform repairs has become increasingly difficult as these systems continue to age,” Rahurkar wrote in an email. “Though we are not mandated to reduce [greenhouse gasses], we’re now taking the steps to replace this 75-year-old system which is inefficient, at the end of its life, and requires a full conversion over the long term.”
The feasibility study includes details about several plans Western could consider when updating the facilities, including heat pumps, a decentralized system and electric and natural gas boilers.
The feasibility study explored connecting Western to the port’s new system, but there may be challenges with linking the two. The greatest challenge: the distance — and steep hill — between the two.
“While the physical distance between Western’s campus and the waterfront area is not insignificant, and the planned system still relies partially on natural gas, there could be financial or resiliency/redundancy reasons why interconnection, or a provision for future interconnection, could make sense for Western,” the study found.
Ramel and Giffin, too, said connecting the university to the port could be feasible down the road.
“It would have to make sense, and we’d have to run a pipe up the hill, but it’s not impossible,” Giffin said. “There’s a lot of potential there.”
Ramel said the connection could be a major boon to both entities, reducing overall costs and carbon emissions across the board.
This year, Gov. Jay Inslee requested an additional $10 million in the capital budget, still being considered in the Legislature, to fund the heating conversion project. Ramel hopes the university can use some of the funds to connect with the port, if the budget goes through as-is.
Though Ramel has introduced the legislation, and the system is already in the works in Bellingham, an all-encompassing district heating system connecting the waterfront, the university and downtown Bellingham is still a long-term possibility.
“It’ll be years and years before we’re installing and running a pipe up Cornwall Avenue,” Ramel said.