Grid Philly
Summary
Tucked into a still corner of Grays Ferry, a block-spanning brick building with towering stacks overlooks the river and its walking trail. Thick steel pipes snake around the compound, carrying water and gas to tanks and boilers. The air thrums with the sound of machinery hard at work turning water into steam.
This is the Vicinity Energy Schuylkill plant, and it’s what’s known as a combined heat and power plant. Giant boilers within combust fuel to spin turbines that generate electricity. The excess heat from that process is then used to create high-pressure steam that gets funneled out to customers through the “steam loop,” a 41-mile circuit of piping under the city. Steam is used by many of the city’s office buildings, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others, to both warm radiators and drive cooling compressors.
Steam systems, also known as district energy systems, undergird hundreds of U.S. cities, college campuses, hospital complexes, military bases and airports, providing heat, cooling and power to millions of people. The Department of Energy estimates there are 660 active district energy systems in the country. Vicinity is the largest operator of district energy systems in North America. In Philadelphia, they serve over 100 million square feet across 400 buildings.
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