| Co-Op City CHP Plant Bronx, New York, USA  PDF Summary |
The Co-Op City complex is a housing cooperative located in Bronx, NY, originally constructed in 1973. The complex includes 15,372 units located in over 35 buildings, and houses approximately 60,000 residents. In 2007, the cooperative board began the process of upgrading the site’s outdated central heating plant to a combined heat and power plant meeting the facility’s electrical and thermal needs, and allowing for operation independent of the local utility system. The result was a flexible, 40 MW design utilizing a high pressure boiler and two combustion turbines with heat recovery steam generators to supply steam to a turbine generator whose exhaust would meet the site’s thermal load requirements. The inclusion of steam turbine-driven chillers in the design would allow the system to operate with a high annual capacity factor.This system, which was built leveraging a $2 million incentive from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), is one of the pioneer micro grid applications in the New York City Metro Area. The CHP plant provides much needed energy generation reliability to the residents, and allowed the complex to recently weather Hurricane Sandy with minimal disruption. In addition to improving energy efficiency and system reliability, the Co-Op City CHP plant has reduced the cooperative’s greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity and fuel oil consumption by 143,105 metric tons per year, or over 50%. |