Highly efficient energy system to power Harvard’s Allston campus

View Only

Highly efficient energy system to power Harvard’s Allston campus

By District Energy posted 02-26-2018 00:00

Recommend

Colin Durrant, Harvard University

Credit: Leers Weinzapfel Associates Architects

Summary

New district energy facility prioritizes climate resiliency, includes largest thermal storage tank in Massachusetts.

Energy fuels innovation and Harvard's growing innovation corridor in Allston is going to need an energy system as advanced as the cutting-edge research being conducted up and down Western Avenue. To meet this challenge, the University has designed a lower-carbon, climate resistant, and highly efficient district energy facility (DEF) that's beginning to take shape behind the rising steel of the new Science and Engineering Complex (SEC).

The 58,000 square foot facility will provide a reliable source of heating, cooling, and electricity to support Harvard's academic and research activities being planned for Allston. Because they act as an in-house utility dedicated to serving campus buildings, facilities of this type also have an outsized impact on a campus's greenhouse gas emissions footprint.