Located between Theater Drive Garage and New College West, the West Plant supplies most of the University’s cooling and heating via a cogeneration facility that produces electricity, steam, chilled water, and hot water. It uses a gas turbine to generate power and captures waste heat to produce steam, achieving up to 80% efficiency. The West Plant also includes a chilled water system and a massive thermal storage tank, helping manage peak cooling demands. As part of the University’s mission to reduce carbon emissions, the West Plant is in the process of being updated from the older gas-fired technology to electric heat pumps just like our new TIGER (Thermally Integrated Geo-Exchange Resource) facility.  

The West Plant and TIGER facilities were designed to operate in parallel, enabling a more robust energy delivery system to campus. As the campus transitions from a district scale steam system to a district scale heating and cooling system powered by geo-exchange technology, the West Plant first received a utility upgrade over the last couple of years, then added a heat pump into the current equipment line-up.  

“The successful integration of heat pump technology at the West Plant marks a major step forward in our campus energy evolution,” said Executive Director of Engineering and Campus Energy, John Hannum. “By pairing with TIGER, we’ve enhanced system resilience, increased efficiency, and advanced our commitment to carbon neutrality—all while continuing to deliver reliable heating, cooling, and electricity to the University community.” 

Now that the geo-exchange piping connections into the West Plant were completed this summer, the heat pump is also able to circulate water through the approximately 375 geo-exchange bores installed beneath Poe Field for seasonal reuse.  

According to Sarah Boll, Executive Director, Sustainability, “This is a milestone worthy of celebration. Adding a heat pump to the West Plant and activating the geo-exchange bores at Poe Field is a major step toward Princeton’s net-zero goals. It reflects our strong commitment to sustainability and the dedication of our Facilities teams in making it happen.” The increased efficiency, reduced emissions and additional redundancy that has been achieved by operating heat pumps in both the West Plant and TIGER allows Princeton to maintain reliable baseline energy and peak load support while gradually continuing the shift towards a carbon-neutral future.