Rozell Plant Gets Efficiency, Sustainability Upgrades

Weaving his way through a warren of ductwork, piping and electrical conduits, past boilers and chillers, condensers and blowers, Matt Deppa, chief engineer at EWU’s physical plant operation, pauses in front of a 10-inch programmable logic control display. After a quick look, he turns toward a visitor. “Here’s the thing,” Deppa says, his voice rising to be heard above the rumble and whirr of machinery, “a lot of people really don’t know what we do in here.”

“In here,” is EWU’s Rozell Physical Plant building, an unprepossessing structure perched above the corner of Elm and Washington streets. What they “do” in there is operate and maintain the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems that keep Eastern comfortably habitable through every season of the year.

Now, thanks to a combination of a $20 million state capital budget appropriation and targeted grants, Deppa and the rest of the Rozell crew are two years in on a multi-faceted overhaul, one that includes key structural and component upgrades that will boost the reliability, sustainability and safety of Eastern’s heating and cooling systems for decades to come.

The scope of the transformation is impressive. Upgrades already in place include two new high-efficiency, low-emission boilers that provide safer, cleaner, more consistent heating with less fuel. There are also five new, liquid-cooled “chillers” — massive units that cool the water used by campus buildings for air conditioning — along with four new cooling towers that optimize the chilling system’s performance. Electrical upgrades include moving high-voltage switches that had previously been located in Eastern’s four-mile tunnel loop to safer, above-ground locations.

Perhaps the most innovative addition is the installation of a “microsteam turbine” energy recovery system—technology that repurposes energy that might otherwise be wasted. This surprisingly compact system — the entire turbine rests on a single pallet-size concrete slab — works by capturing high-pressure steam from the plant’s new boilers and converting it into electricity. The power generated is sufficient to run the entire Rozell facility.

For the physical plant crew members who operate and maintain this dizzyingly complex array of infrastructure — many of whom, like Deppa, learned the trade while serving on ships with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps — changes in the 1970s-era plant were welcome indeed.

Deppa says he’s particularly excited about a soon-to-be-completed control room rebuild. That tight space — affectionately known as the “dog house” to the facility’s crew —  is where staff monitor an advanced “supervisory control and data acquisition system” that uses both hardware and software to ensure that nothing in the plant, as Deppa puts it, “goes sideways.”

On a recent tour, Steve Schmedding, EWU’s facilities engineer and senior project manager, joined up with Deppa to show off the new additions. Schmedding, a Navy veteran, explained how identifying modernization priorities, then obtaining funding and moving forward with purchases and installation, has been a ten-year-long process. Every stage involved meticulous planning and detailed cost justifications in biennial capital budget requests.

“Our plans are in a binder that’s 80-pages thick, at least,” Schmedding says. “There’s a lot to ’em.” He estimates that portions of the project — notably the chilling systems — are close to the finish line, while work on the whole of the plan is just over half-way to completion.

For his part, Deppa says showing off the fruits of this planning is something he’s always happy to do. Usually that means tours for students, faculty members and other interested groups. The goal, he says, is to show that, in an era where sustainability and efficiency are more critical than ever, Eastern is stepping up to enhance critical infrastructure while respecting the planet. And it’s doing it quietly, efficiently, and largely out of sight.

“It’s great when I get people who are interested in what we do,” Deppa says. “I do tours for sustainability students, for engineering students, for local public-school kids — anybody that reaches out, I’ll put forth the effort. We’re definitely really proud of the work we do here.”