A critical part of reaching that goal occurred in the last few weeks with the startup of the campus's Combined Heat and Power Plant, also known as a cogeneration plant. The facility, a 15,000-square-foot addition to the campus's central heating plant, produces electricity and heat together, and uses significantly less energy than if they were produced separately.

The plant includes two natural gas-fired turbine generators capable of producing a total of 30 megawatts of electricity. Hot exhaust from the turbines is recycled to produce steam for heating the campus.

Before the plant began operating, Cornell relied primarily on coal to produce its steam heat. The university had been burning 60,000 tons of coal per year at a plant that was built in 1922.

Since the combined heat and power plant has gone online, the university says, it has reduced coal usage by 80 percent. Within 18 months of the plant’s startup, Cornell will reduce carbon emissions associated with heating and electric needs by 28 percent.

The system also will enable the university to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide by 800 tons a year and nitrogen oxides by 250 tons a year.

In addition to the combined heat and power plant, the university already had a cogeneration system and a hydroelectric plant that produced about 15 percent of the electricity used on campus. Those systems will continue to be used, the university says.

Cornell has cited five factors that led the institution to pursue the combined heat and power plant option: renewal is required to replace one aging steam generator; steaming capacity is needed to meet load additions; greater fuel flexibility is needed; highly efficient electricity generation can help control cost and environmental emissions; and lower emissions are desired to help meet sustainability goals.

The university's climate action plan sets a goal of reducing the institution's net greenhouse-gas emissions, now at 319,000 metric tons, to zero by 2050. Cornell plans to meet this goal by addressing five major areas: