Utility modernization yields significant benefits
Creating power stability and efficiencies while reducing harmful emissions
Rikers Island is the location for New York City’s main prison complex, which is powered by the city’s utility grid system. New York Power Authority — recognizing the need to modernize and incorporate sustainable processes into the grid, while meeting most electrical and thermal needs for the Rikers Island Correctional Facility — selected our team to provide turnkey engineering, procurement and construction services for a 15MW cogeneration facility and replaced the individual distributed generation sets throughout the facility. If grid faults are detected, the system can operate in true island mode, and individual load banks can be taken offline and coordinated with cogeneration and other sources. The new operations yield significant reduction in CO2 and NOx emissions to the environment.
Improvements include emergency systems, system-wide oversight, thermal energy production and power synchronization
Our building, geotechnical and foundation design team made informed choices around generation equipment, ancillary systems and the emergency generator scheme.
The cogeneration plant effectively aggregated emergency electrical service and eliminated 80 emergency generators across the island, allowing emergency power distribution to any load when needed.
To provide the prime source of electrical and thermal energy, two modular gas turbine generators and heat recovery steam generators were installed and synchronized with the utility grid, allowing supplemental electrical load.
To increase efficiency, a utility substation was established, and generator step-up transformers were installed.
System-wide oversight and monitoring was established via a new control room.
Investing in modernized infrastructure can achieve both ESG and financial goals
Completed in January of 2015, our sustainable system design is delivering significant positive outcomes, from producing annual facility savings of over seven million dollars to generating more than eight million dollars in annual energy savings. Sustainable design features throughout the facility are driving an 88% average annual reduction in electric consumption. The system has reduced the facility’s yearly CO2 emissions by 25,000 tons and NOx emissions by 45 tons.
Such significant efficiencies in energy generation, CO2 and NOx reduction, and cost savings illustrate how modernizing infrastructure can concurrently realize ESG and financial goals.
