| Profile: Lake Park High School District 108 |
ENERGY SAVINGS AND RELIABLE POWER
Lake Park High School District 108 has put it's two cogeneration systems on line. The School District is ready to start it's system at the East and West campuses.
Each campus recently had a 760 kilowatt co-gen plant designed and installed. The project was initiated by Dr. Jerry Wiseman, the Deputy Superintendent for Business for the school district. Dr. Wiseman laid the ground work by obtaining feasibility studies from Northern Illinois Gas and Common-wealth Edison. Both studies, though not agreeing on payback times, did show substantial savings for the district.
The Northern Illinois Gas study calculated that the district would save approximately $140,000 per year for the West campus and approximately $118,000 per year for the East campus by installing a cogen system.
The District interviewed many design firms and then made the decision to award the design of the project to ARCON Associates of Lombard. ARCON Associates contracted with AMSCO Engineering, Inc. of Downers Grove. AMSCO Engineering, Inc. was in charge of the design of the energy generation system while ARCON Associates designed the additions to house the systems. ARCON Associates prepared the construction documents, handled bidding and observed construction for the project.
A new addition was designed for each of the campuses.
Lake Park East High School was provided with a self-standing building which besides housing the co-gen system also provided new toilet and storage facilities.
Lake Park West High School had an addition to its existing maintenance building to house the co-gen system as well as additional storage for the maintenance department.
The co-gen systems were designed to provide 760 kilowatts of power to the buildings through a natural gas fired caterpillar engine generator. Power from the generator is routed to the new Zenith paralleling switch gears. The switch gear monitors the co-gen system as well as incoming power from Common-wealth Edison to provide for the building total energy needs.
The School District's building and grounds director, John Slavich, will be in charge of the daily operation of the system and will also be able to monitor the co-generation system performance through his central Alerton energy management system.
MCA member Mr. Slavich, was instrumental in the layout of the system and provided the design team with insight on how he wanted equipment and the building laid out. This way the school district was provided with a system to suit their needs.
The total project cost including the additions was $1,843,300. With a total estimated energy savings for both campuses of $258,000, the payback for the total project comes out to approximately 7.1 years. If room within the existing building could have been utilized, the payback would have been approximately 5.9 years. The energy savings amount includes a deduction for the yearly cost of maintenance for the generation system.
About the Author; Mr. Daniel G. Wesley is a Principal at AMSCO Engineering, Inc., Downers Grove, Illinois.
A gas fired Caterpillar Engine Generator powers Lake Park West's 760 KW Co-gen System