GHG Emissions, Sourcing Renewables - March 14, 2025
University at Albany Funds Decarbonization Project
The University at Albany announced a $30 million decarbonization project that will allow the campus to shut down its gas-fired boilers during the summer months and significantly lower its fossil fuel consumption.
The university will add a high-efficiency electric centrifugal chiller and a heat recovery chiller connected to a new geothermal well field in the Dutch Quad parking lot and retire two gas-fired absorption chillers in the University’s 1960s-era central Power Plant on the Uptown Campus.
The chiller project is part of SUNY’s push to decarbonize its footprint across the state as New York strives to meet the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), a 2019 law that requires an 85% reduction in New York’s GHG emissions by 2050.
“Universities must lead not only by expanding our scientific understanding of climate change, but also by taking concrete steps to mitigate it. I am proud that UAlbany is committed to both,” UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez said in a statement. “This decarbonization project is a major step in reducing our campus greenhouse gas emissions and embodies our resolve to lead on climate by example.”
UAlbany’s chiller project was funded in the 2023-24 state budget and includes modifying domestic hot water systems in more than 25 buildings and installing new low-temperature hot water piping in the campus’ athletic facilities.
These upgrades means the campus can shut down its gas-fired boilers during the summer months and use the new geothermal heat recovery chiller to meet cooling as well as 100% of heating and domestic hot water loads during the summer. The new geothermal heat recovery chiller will also provide 100% of the heating, cooling and domestic hot water to achieve an all-electric renovated Physical Education building.
The project will lower the university's annual natural gas usage by an estimated 16% even though it is adding more cooling capacity.
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