Bathurst campus becomes more energy efficient

Charles Sturt University’s new cogeneration plant, a 22 tonne machine is nearly complete.
Manufactured in Hungry and Austria, the plant took 3 months arrive in Bathurst after a journey by land and sea.
The cogeneration plant arrives onsite
Specialist staff have been working on setting up the plant and configuring it to the campus systems. The plant will be launched and officially commissioned in July. 

The cogeneration plant is housed in the Boiler House between the Learning Commons and the P10 carpark
Once operational the cogeneration plant will be capable of supplying up to 65 per cent of the electricity needs on the Bathurst campus. This saving will reduce the University’s carbon footprint by up to seven per cent.

Why a Cogeneration Plant at Bathurst CSU?

Cogeneration is a process that generates power and utilises the waste heat that is produced as a by-product of the power generation. 
Cogeneration offers significant greenhouse gas and cost reductions compared to the provision of equivalent grid-sourced electricity and stand-alone hot water plant.
Bathurst campus is equipped with a centralised hot-water plant powered by grid-sourced electricity that services a significant proportion of the campus with hot water for domestic and space heating requirements. The existing boilers at Bathurst campus supply water to approximately 30% of the existing building area.
The installation of a gas-powered cogeneration plant will give the Bathurst campus access to a cheaper source of electricity and produce hot water with waste heat from electricity generation.  This will supplement existing gas-fired boilers and reduce the overall energy consumption on the Bathurst campus. it is projected to lessen the amount of greenhouse gases produced by 2, 870 tonnes per year. 
This is one big step towards achieving the University’s target of a 25 per cent reduction in normalised energy consumption and to be greenhouse neutral by 2015.
More information about the cogeneration plant is available through Division of Facilities Management’s project page.

As part of the installation of the Cogeneration Plant at Bathurst the Learning commons and Library will be shut on June 29th and July 13th from approximately 9am until 5pm. More details on this closure will be posted closer to the date.