Cornell Utilities Cost More Than You Might Think

This is the first part of a series on Cornell’s utilities and their impact upon student life. This article gives a quick background of the different utilities on campus.

Most of the time, Cornell students can focus on their studies without worrying about the heating, air conditioning or electricity that keeps them comfortable.  Utilities only impact students when they write a check to the Bursar or if there is an outage.  This article looks under the hood to understand what Cornellians take for granted.

Electricity

Electricity was introduced to the Cornell campus in the early 1880s by pioneering electrical engineering professors who developed a hydroelectric system in Fall Creek gorge.  Cornell has produced  some of its own power ever since, but has for a century grown dependent on New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), a private utility company (founded in 1852 as the Ithaca Gas Light Company), to supply what cannot be made on campus.  The biggest electricity user on campus is the synchrotron which consumes 12% of the campus’ total electricity use.

Steam

Although Cornell started by burning wood in fireplaces, it quickly moved to coal.  Freight trains transported coal to a central heating plant, and an inventory was always kept in the form of a large pile of coal adjacent to the plant.  The coal was burned to make steam in central boilers, and the steam flowed through 25 miles of pipes in underground tunnels to steam radiators in major buildings on campus. The central plant opened in 1923 and used to burn 65,000 tons of coal each year.

However, when rain fell on the coal pile, the runoff would overflow into Cascadilla Creek causing pollution; the NY Department of Environmental Conservation would fine Cornell.  To improve the environment, in 2011, Cornell converted the central heating plant to burn natural gas, capturing the waste heat to make electricity.  That conversion also involved installing high capacity gas mains from the national pipeline grid directly into the central plant.  This gives Cornell access to buy natural gas from a nation-wide market place with a lower transportation cost than renting trains to haul coal.  Presently, the university is working to replace the gas boilers with geothermal energy.

Chilled Water

Starting in the 1950s, window air conditioners started to appear on campus, usually for the offices of Deans or Vice Presidents but not for students or staff.  Many science labs started to install water-cooled equipment to conduct delicate experiments, so Cornell again became a pioneer in creating a central chilled water cooling system. In 1963, Cornell opened the Weinhold Chilled Water Plant that contained three mechanical chillers and used Beebe Lake as a heat sink.  Water flowed in a closed loop from the plant to individual buildings where it cooled equipment or supplied air conditioning.  Soon, window air conditioners disappeared from the central campus. Instead, offices, classrooms and even newer dorms were protected from summer heat and humidity. New York State paid for a second chilled water plant in 1974 to cool the state schools.  A third plant opened in 1974 and expanded in 1996.

In 2000, Cornell shifted to using Lake Cayuga as a heat sink.  Because the water at the bottom of that Lake is about 39°F year round, it can cool the campus without operating mechanical chillers.  Although the system cost $58.5 million, it has paid for itself through energy savings and avoided equipment costs.  The Lake Source Cooling system also serves Ithaca High School.  Since 2000, as Cornell built new buildings or renovated existing ones to add air conditioning, the square feet of air conditioned space has increased by 37%. However, Cornell’s Lake Source Cooling load is ultimately limited by its environmental permit.

Drinking Water

Cornell has always had its own water system.  Water from Fall Creek is filtered by a plant located near the Cornell Botanical Garden and then piped to all buildings on campus.  Cornell owns 120 miles of water pipes. The plant can safely provide up to 3.6 million gallons of water per day (MGD). The average output is 1.7 MGD.

How much does all this cost?

In 2021-22, Cornell’s budget for Repairs Maintenance and Utilities totalled $156 million. Historically, 46% of that was utility costs. These costs are billed back to individual budget units based upon a complicated formula that is recovered from tuition or research grants. During 2019-20, Cornell billed out the following utility costs:

Although national data is available to test whether Cornell is paying more per person for utilities than other universities, ultimately Cornell does not compete for students or research grants on the basis of utility costs.  So, without competition,  the community must trust Day Hall to decide whether our utility costs are too high and how much more should be invested in improving utility sustainability, reliability or efficiency.

Like death and taxes, utility costs may be unavoidable.  However, Cornell has reduced utility costs through conservation, improving efficiency, and using solar and hydropower.  Every time a Cornellian flips a light switch, it is a decision that has cost consequences mitigated by Cornell’s past investments and maintenance.

Part 2 will analyze Cornell’s emergency response plan and resiliency against a large scale power outage.