The Iowa Board of Regents has approved planning of a new $75 million power plant to serve the needs of the University of Iowa campus, which includes. The West Campus Energy Plant will provide critical steam for heating, cooling, and sterilization to buildings on the west side of campus and provide energy security for all UI campus facilities in the event of flood, grid failure, or other adverse event. The new plant will likely take two years to construct and will be operational in four years.

The new plant will include infrastructure for biomass fuels. The plant site plan includes space for potential rail and truck lines that could directly supply biomass fuel to the plant along with space to accommodate biomass material handling facilities; a limitation with the UI’s main Power Plant located along the Iowa River. The long-term vision for the utility infrastructure at the UI includes built-in support for the continued use and expansion of biomass fuels, including the perennial fuel crop Miscanthus, oat hulls, and wood chips.

In addition to modernizing its utilities infrastructure to create energy security, fuel flexibility and additional pathways to green energy, the UI has made great strides on its 2020 goal to hold total annual energy consumption in check through energy conservation efforts across campus, despite an unprecedented decade of growth. The Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building is the latest of seven new buildings to open in the last five years without increasing the UI’s annual energy consumption above the 2010 benchmark.

See the complete Iowa Now article for more details.