The timing could not have been better.

A coal-fired boiler in the old steam plant broke down just days after a new natural gas-fired boiler was installed and ready.

“It was good timing that we were able to get that new boiler in there, started up, available for service and just about the week after we were all done checking it out, our coal boiler broke down,” said Gary Reed, director of facilities planning and management. “So now we started the gas boiler and it’s really doing its job for us.”

The new boiler cost the university around $1.4 million, including delivery, installation and startup. The boiler was purchased from CB Nebraska Boiler of Lincoln, Neb. The Board of Trustees approved the purchase at its April 27, 2009 meeting.

It will serve as the campus’s main energy source until the Renewable Energy Center opens in fall 2011. A second, identical boiler will be installed in the new plant; they will serve as backup to the biomass gasifiers.

“This new boiler is going to basically carry the campus load until we such time as we start up our new plant’s gas boiler out there, this one’s twin,” Reed said. “We’ll start it up first, out there, and once we get it up and reliable out there, we’ll come back here and make plans to disassemble the new one that’s in play now and relocate it to the new plant.”

The current plant also has two coal burning boilers still in commission. Reed said the university uses them as much as possible because coal fuel is less expensive than natural gas.

“They’re frail and they’re basically unreliable,” Reed said. “The coal system is the basis of why we wanted to build the new system in the first place. It gives us a really available, reliable and reasonably priced fuel in the biomass.”

The gasifiers will start by burning two-inch hardwood chips, but the university is looking into other plant matter that can be used as fuel.

“We’re looking at alternative fuels,” Reed said. “There’s a lot of research going on right now on growing fuel crop. All the fuel we need for the university could theoretically be grown locally.

The problem is, there’s not enough fuel users for biomass. We’re one of the first.”

Design details of the gasifiers are scheduled to be finalized this spring.

The outside shell of the plant should be completed in May, and internal construction should be completed by summer 2011.

“We’re on schedule to be in service by fall 2011, so that gives us the summer to do the shakedown, do the initial start-up and do any minor adjustments, tweaks and tuning to be ready for the heating season of 2011,” Reed said.

Construction on the Renewable Energy Center, on the corner of 18th Street and Edgar Drive, began in November 2009.

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or seruholl2@eiu.edu