If there’s one thing students can appreciate at the University, it’s air conditioning. But perhaps few students realize just how much machinery is necessary to make that possible.
The University’s Cogeneration Plant, adjacent to Johnston Hall, produces much of the electricity and steam that powers campus.
“We call it a ‘cogeneration’ plant because it produces both electricity and steam,” said Bobby Pitre, executive director of facility and utility operations for Facility Services.
Pitre said the plant’s maximum capacity is 20 megawatts, or 20 million watts. Most days, however, it usually produces about 18 megawatts.
That translates into about 65 percent of the campus’s energy in a year. The rest, Pitre said, comes from Entergy, the regional electricity provider.
The plant’s effectiveness changes seasonally. During the winter, when cold, dense air allows the machinery to operate at peak efficiency and when air conditioning needs are lower, the facility can provide most or all power to campus.
During the summer, however, hot air makes the plant function less efficiently — and air conditioners draw more power to deal with the sweltering heat.
Air is actually fundamental to the plant’s power production. Huge vents surrounded by jets of cool air constantly suck air into the facility, drawing it into the massive engine that drives campus.
“It’s basically an aircraft engine,” said Peter Davidson, director of Energy Services in Facility Services. “It’s like the one you’d see on a C-130 airplane.”
The engine roars inside a containment chamber in a spacious warehouse in the center of the facility, using natural gas to burn the pumped-in air.
Just outside the chamber is the control room, where the huge roar of the engine is reduced to a constant dull whine. Two operators monitor the plant at all times, checking six monitors that display charts and diagrams measuring operations.
They periodically leave the room to check display panels on the sprawling maze of fat multicolored pipes that weave throughout the warehouse.
The engine’s fire shoots into a stack of huge turbines that use its force to generate electricity.
That electricity flows across the street to the central campus power hub, the “Champion Building” — built right after LSU’s 2003 national football championship win.
That building directs the electricity from the plant and from Entergy to the buildings throughout campus.
But the work doesn’t stop at the turbines. The superheated exhaust from the engine, which can reach temperatures greater than 1,376 degrees Fahrenheit, is capable of making a lot of steam.
The plant harnesses this potential by funneling the flames into a vast vat of water. The resulting steam — more than 80,000 pounds of it — is piped out of the facility into underground steam tunnels, from which it flows into the various buildings around campus.
Most of that steam is used for heating purposes. The facility is capable of heating most of campus even during the winter, although cold snaps can sometimes push it.
“A week ago, when it was cold, I was using everything I had,” Davidson said.
The exhaust from all these processes funnel out of a black exhaust stack, causing puffs of white smoke to float up past Tiger Stadium.
The big brick stack, a remnant of the plant’s older, smaller past, is no longer operational.
In addition to producing electricity and steam, the plant houses the air conditioning machinery that cools much of campus.
 
Water-chilling towers in the plant’s backyard cool water that is pumped into the buildings throughout campus.
But how much does it cost to operate all this machinery? There’s no simple answer.
“It’s hard to say,” Pitre said. “Natural gas prices determine [cost] mostly.”
Sometimes the University is making serious profits, while sometimes it’s only breaking even. Sometimes natural-gas spikes force the University to rely more on Entergy, which buys its power from a diverse array of fuel sources.
“We try to look ahead in the future’s market,” Pitre said. “Right now, natural gas prices are quite low, so we’re doing pretty well.”
 
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]