Facility Overview

Minnesota is one of the coldest parts of the continental United States.  The long sub-freezing winters are relieved by short and hot summers.  The solution for the environmental demand at Minnesota State University, Mankato is a complex centralized Utility Plant (a diagram of the MSU campus is shown below).  Mankato is located in southern Minnesota, in the Minnesota River Valley. The Mankato campus consists of approximately sixteen academic buildings that are largely interconnected (did we mention it was cold in the winter?), three dormitory complexes, and currently supports over 12,000 students. To address the University's heating and cooling needs, the Facilities Department maintains a centralized Utility Plant and equipment distributed across campus. Equipment at the plant has Map of Minnesota State University, Mankato campus.expanded over the last two decades to include four boilers, one steam turbine driven generator unit, three chillers, two emergency power diesel generators, three stand-by diesel generators, and various pumps and compressors.

People generally consider air conditioning and heating equipment fairly commonplace. However, it is interesting to consider the challenges posed by heating and cooling something with the shear size of a university campus, even a medium sized one like Minnesota State.  If the campus was heated by a typical home furnace, it would take over 600

       

units to satisfy the heating needs! And if campus was cooled with a typical window air conditioner it would take over 1000 central air conditioners to maintain the required conditions! Instead, steam and chilled water is produced in the Utility Plant (shown in the picture below) and distributed through a network of pipes and tunnels to the buildings on The Minnesota State University, Mankato's Utility Plant.campus. The steam and chilled water is then run through air handling units in each building to heat or cool the air being supplied to the building space.

Steam Heating of Campus

In 1958, Minnesota State University started discussing how the campus could be expanded. It was decided to develop additional campus buildings at a new hilltop location where the entire campus is now located.  During the initial construction, boilers were installed in the Weicking building to satisfy the heating requirements of the upper campus. These boilers were used until 1962 when two 35,000 lb/hr boilers were installed at what is now the campus Utility Plant, creating a centralized steam plant facility. The move to a centralized Utility Plant came when the use of hot water cycles in high-pressure boilers was introduced and became practical. Before this change, campus had approximately 19 boilers heating campus from individual buildings.  Imagine the extra complications with maintenance that would