North Chiller Geothermal project complete, next steps consider arena project

Two years of construction on the North Geothermal Plant next to Millett Hall have come to a close. The wells are now in use and will serve 25 buildings on campus once final tests and commissioning are complete.

The project was envisioned over a decade ago as a part of Miami University’s Utility Master Plan, with the goal of transitioning the university from steam and coal to sustainable energy. This pushes Miami closer to its commitment of carbon neutrality by 2040.

“I think that everyone is very excited to see this long term planning and goal finally come to fruition,” said Director of Sustainability Olivia Herron.

With big changes coming to North Campus in the form of a new arena and relocated intramural field, the next steps of geothermal energy at Miami have had to pivot and take the new arena into account.

Herron said that while Millett Hall was originally going to have an infrastructure update to take geothermal rather than steam energy, these updates did not happen in light of the confirmed arena plan. Vice President of Facility Planning and Operations Cody Powell said instead, the new arena will be serviced by both the new North Geothermal Plant and existing Western Geothermal Plant, made possible by a future connection project of the two plants.

Powell said this connection project was already a recommendation of the Utility Master Plan, but the approved arena construction made the timing right to implement it in tandem.

“Our long term plan was to create that separate feed that would link those two together in more than one location,” he said. “It’s been difficult to justify that occurring, but that is something with the arena project it makes sense to complete that loop and so we are working to do so.”

The connection project will allow for the finalization of conversion from steam to hot water in several buildings on the northern portion of campus. Powell said it will also increase the resiliency of Miami’s geothermal energy in the event of technical issues and outages.

“I think this is an important element as we move forward with our goal for carbon neutrality for 2040,” Powell said. “We’ve been chipping away at some major projects, and this gives us greater [resiliency] for the campus as we transition to this new system and we look forward to the benefits that it brings to campus.”

This resilience will be important to a large number of academic halls and dormitories. Herron said that at its full capacity, the North Geothermal Plant will service 27% of gross square footage of Miami’s buildings.

As well as laying out plans for a connection, the Utility Master Plan specified the field outside of Millett as the location for a new geothermal field. In more recent university plans, it is also set to become the new relocated site of an intramural field.

“We planned for it to be in the lawn area of Millett since 2010, so that was not a factor,” Herron said.

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When students return to this lawn area in the fall it will be filled with a large synthetic turf field, tennis and pickleball courts, a basketball court, workout equipment and some walking trails and green space in the form of a small dog park. This is possible because the geothermal well systems are completely underground. Project manager John Porchowsky said that the two uses will be able to coexist with each other and work in tandem.

“The geothermal wells will not negatively affect the student experience or result in maintenance concerns,” Porchowsky said in a statement to The Student. “We were intentional with placement of the program items to provide the best student and community experience possible while maintaining the ability to effectively and efficiently maintain the adjacent infrastructure.”

The majority of new turf spaces will be available for students to use when Cook Field is closed. More information about the upcoming North and Western Geothermal connection project will be set in stone as construction develops on the new arena project.

Kennelse@miamioh.edu