Vicinity Steam Plant | Kneeland Street | Chinatown

[Equilibria]

I expect this will roll into the Parcel 25 thread at some point, but that thread was (very appropriately) locked by the mods, so we can start fresh for now.

A power play? Steam plant owner aims to decarbonize downtown with huge building project - The Boston Globe

First the partners need to navigate the bureaucracy at the Department of Transportation, which controls the property at the heart of this proposal.

www.bostonglobe.com

"Power Play" is the right title for this - why did they not make this request during the long period when Baker wasn't soliciting bids?

Also, before someone asks, the height limits for these parcels are pretty low and National Development doesn't do towers.

 

[SuffolkHeights11]

I'm sure MassDOT will respond well to the ultimatum National Development is giving them here....

 

[stefal]

That's quite a deal.

At the most recent MGH public meeting, half of the comments over the 2 hour meeting were about MGH not being 100% fossil-fuel-free in its energy use, because the heating system utilized steam heat from Kendall on peak summer days for cooling, which was a by-product of natural gas energy production. No matter how many times they asked, they got the same response, and no matter how many times they got a response, they didn't seem to understand it. I'm sure MGH will be happy to hear they may be getting electric boilers.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Doesn't the value of the electric boilers for steam generation totally depend on where the electricity comes from? I mean there is nothing intrinsically clean about electric boilers if they pull power from a fossil fuel plant elsewhere in the state.

Electricity is basically NIMBY clean energy, unless you actually pay to develop renewable sources equivalent to the demand you create.

 

[Equilibria]

Doesn't the value of the electric boilers for steam generation totally depend on where the electricity comes from? I mean there is nothing intrinsically clean about electric boilers if they pull power from a fossil fuel plant elsewhere in the state.

Electricity is basically NIMBY clean energy, unless you actually pay to develop renewable sources equivalent to the demand you create.

In 2019, MA had about a quarter of its electricity from renewables, hopefully going up with Cape Wind. It's better than 100% natural gas.

 

[RandomWalk]

Cape Wind is dead. You may mean Vineyard Wind.

 

[JeffDowntown]

In 2019, MA had about a quarter of its electricity from renewables, hopefully going up with Cape Wind. It's better than 100% natural gas.

That is fine. But anyone claiming green creds by switching thermal generating capacity from natural gas to electricity is lying -- unless they have invested in equivalent renewable production of the electricity. This is just kicking the can down the road to make it some one else's problem. The electricity for the boilers has to come from someplace -- and it is NEW GRID DEMAND because that thermal energy was coming from natural gas. All that Vineyard Wind energy is already spoken for by other users. New demand requires new capacity, or no creds.

 

[Vagabond]

Doesn't the value of the electric boilers for steam generation totally depend on where the electricity comes from? I mean there is nothing intrinsically clean about electric boilers if they pull power from a fossil fuel plant elsewhere in the state.

Electricity is basically NIMBY clean energy, unless you actually pay to develop renewable sources equivalent to the demand you create.

It's not quite so straightforward...

1. Electric Boilers have no flue losses - energy in goes straight into the steam - meaning ~98% efficiency, compared to the 85% of an industrial NG boiler.
2. NG calculations routinely ignore drilling and transmission losses, which are ENORMOUS. Localized NG combustion has a huge environmental impact.
3. The Veolia/Vicinity Plant is the primary steam source, which is repurposes waste heat to run the steam system - this is a significant improvement on individual NG steam boilers throughout the city.
4. The big one... You have to plan for the future - industrial boilers have a lifespan of 20-40 years. What you invest in today has generations of impact. The grid is getting "cleaner" at a minimum of 2% per year, and likely 2-3x that rate over the next decade between Hydro and Wind installations (let's not go down the nuclear rabbit hole... those take 20 years to permit and build.)

The bigger question I'd have is the system resilience/redundance by losing one of the steam sources. If Kendall Veolia trips, will the whole system go down?


EDIT: The city has considered long term district energy expansion - some interesting reports/visuals/interactives in here: http://www.bostonplans.org/planning...boston-community-energy-study#interactive-map

Cambridge side:

Boston side:

 

[JumboBuc]

This is the sentence in the Globe article that trips me up:

Meanwhile, Vicinity’s natural gas-fired power plant at Kendall Square would run during times of peak demand for electricity, while the steam that is currently generated by that power plant would instead be created by boilers powered by electricity.

The Kendall plant is a combined heat & power “cogeneration” plant. So it burns natural gas to create electricity, and instead of venting the excess heat from that electricity generating process into the air it captures it as steam and redirects it into a district heating and cooling network. This is over twice as efficient as a traditional power plant that just vents its steam, as there is significantly less overall energy loss in the process.

The “instead” in the Globe’s description (“while the steam that is currently generated by that power plant would instead be created by boilers powered by electricity”) doesn’t make sense to me. If the plant is generating electricity, it’s a no-brainer to also create and capture steam, since the energy to make that steam is already there and thus practically free. So maybe the Globe’s language is just clunky, and the plan is for electricity to be used to create steam at Kendall only at times when the electricity plant isn’t running?

But that again brings up the question: where is the electricity for those electric boilers coming from? Converting natural gas into heat as a biproduct of generating electricity is incredibly efficient. Turning electricity or natural gas into heat is also efficient, but less efficient than cogeneration. But turning natural gas into electricity and then turning that electricity into heat further down the line is the least efficient option of the bunch. I highly doubt the plan is for Vicinity to go from the most efficient option to the least, so unless there’s another green source of electricity we don’t know about, something must be getting lost in translation here.

 

[JeffDowntown]

This is the sentence in the Globe article that trips me up:

The Kendall plant is a combined heat & power “cogeneration” plant. So it burns natural gas to create electricity, and instead of venting the excess heat from that electricity generating process into the air it captures it as steam and redirects it into a district heating and cooling network. This is over twice as efficient as a traditional power plant that just vents its steam, as there is significantly less overall energy loss in the process.

The “instead” in the Globe’s description (“while the steam that is currently generated by that power plant would instead be created by boilers powered by electricity”) doesn’t make sense to me. If the plant is generating electricity, it’s a no-brainer to also create and capture steam, since the energy to make that steam is already there and thus practically free. So maybe the Globe’s language is just clunky, and the plan is for electricity to be used to create steam at Kendall only at times when the electricity plant isn’t running?

But that again brings up the question: where is the electricity for those electric boilers coming from? Converting natural gas into heat as a biproduct of generating electricity is incredibly efficient. Turning electricity or natural gas into heat is also efficient, but less efficient than cogeneration. But turning natural gas into electricity and then turning that electricity into heat further down the line is the least efficient option of the bunch. I highly doubt the plan is for Vicinity to go from the most efficient option to the least, so unless there’s another green source of electricity we don’t know about, something must be getting lost in translation here.

I think part of the problems is there are different grades of steam.

There are places where the systems are designed for lower pressure co-gen grade steam to be used for heating and hot water. (Usually not for cooling, though) The Boston downtown steam loop is not one of them. The Boston steam utility loop requires a higher pressure steam than is typically left over after generating electricity, so the thermal content of the co-gen steam needs to be "boosted".

Also the co-gen steam at the Kendall plant is only available when the plant is running to cover peak demand. The Boston steam utility loop needs to be available 24/7/365.

 

[bigpicture7]

That's quite a deal.

At the most recent MGH public meeting, half of the comments over the 2 hour meeting were about MGH not being 100% fossil-fuel-free in its energy use, because the heating system utilized steam heat from Kendall on peak summer days for cooling, which was a by-product of natural gas energy production. No matter how many times they asked, they got the same response, and no matter how many times they got a response, they didn't seem to understand it. I'm sure MGH will be happy to hear they may be getting electric boilers.

I thought we had a separate thread about either local steam grids in Boston/Cambridge, or about the Vicinity Kendall plant, but this is the only steam plant thread I could find. Perhaps what I was thinking of is buried in the MGH expansion thread?

Anyway, this press release today ties directly back to Stefal's post above: apparently the Kendall plant is getting electric steam boilers (as in, already arriving on site):

Vicinity Energy Steams Ahead to Sustainable Future with Arrival of 42MW Electric Boiler in Cambridge, Mass.

Vicinity Energy, a decarbonization leader with the nation’s largest portfolio of district energy systems, announces the arrival of its 42MW industrial

www.businesswire.com

EDIT: found it here (interestingly named): "eSteam" for Net-Zero Buildings
I have posted the press release there as perhaps a more apt location for it