Start 14: West Campus Cogeneration Facility
Cost: $180 million

The West Campus Cogeneration Facility at the University of Wisconsin at Madison marks a joint venture between Madison Gas and Electric and the university.

Slated for completion in early spring 2005, the plant is jointly owned by the utility and the university and will provide chilled water and steam to the university and electric service to MGE customers.

Don Peterson, project manager for MG&E Construction, said that the facility will meet the needs of both the campus and community, consuming less energy and generation fewer emissions than two individual plants.

Although the building has a square footage of 90,000, Peterson explained that the number is misleading. Ceiling heights of 90 ft. in some areas make the cubic footage much greater than the square footage would indicate. The structure is topped by two 120-ft.-tall cooling towers.

Students Nearby

Working on the crowded university campus requires careful planning.

"Normally for a power plant of this scope, you would have 20 to 40 acres of lay-down area," Peterson said. "The total for us is seven to nine acres, with a soil stockpile that takes up about half of that. This project requires the kind of staging and coordination that you see in the Loop."

He added that the limited space can easily raise construction costs unless care is taken to avoid unnecessary double handling of materials.

To avoid tying up campus traffic, the project was staged to allow delivery of some of the heavy power-generation equipment during the Christmas break when traffic is at a minimum. Shuttle busses transport workers to the site, eliminating additional traffic and the need for additional parking.

In an attempt to reduce the environmental impact of the project, MGE and the university have been working with WasteCap Wisconsin Inc. to recycle as much of the construction waste as possible.

With all contractors required to participate in the recycling program, the two entities reported 93 percent of the waste generated by the project in January was recycled. The goal is to recycle 75 percent over the life of the project.

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