Geothermal plant on Notre Dame's campus introduces energy efficient way to heat, cool buildings

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- There's a new geothermal plant on the campus of Notre Dame.

It's a project as part of the university's commitment to going green and reaching carbon neutrality by decreasing energy use to heat and cool buildings.

"We're trying really hard to reduce our carbon footprint and make an impact here in Saint Joe County, where we all live and work," says Paul Kempf, Associate Vice President of Utilities and Maintenance.

That is done through a process called geothermal exchange; which uses the constant 50-degree average temperature of the earth underground to make it easier, and with less energy to control climate inside buildings.

The wells are three hundred feet deep and circulate water to exchange heat from the earth, then the heat exchanger is used with heat pumps to create hot or chilled water which is distributed to campus buildings.

"We're basically taking advantage of the constant temperature of the earth, which in the wintertime is warmer obviously than the outside air so we can pull heat from the ground and in the summer it's cooler so we can reject heat," Kempf explains.

Since 2017, the university has completed several projects to establish the infrastructure for this kind of technology.

Now, the new plant on the southeast end of campus will help distribute the heating and cooling from underground wells across some university buildings.

"We have almost 5,000 tons of geothermal capacity which would be a third of our cooling capacity in the summer and a slightly higher percentage of our heating in the winter," Kempf says.

To compare energy savings, university officials say it's more efficient to heat a building to seventy degrees when it starts at fifty degrees versus twenty degrees on a typical winter day.

Those savings are especially important for a growing campus.

"As you look around this part of campus, this is where most of our largest energy-intensive facilities are; with the research facilities, some of the athletic facilities, all the buildings around the stadium that are large structures, so we're close to a lot of our load here," says Kempf.

In the long run, Kempf says this system will be more cost-effective but importantly, more efficient.

He hopes their go at geothermal inspires others to dig deep into the technology.

"It's become very popular to learn more about the combined heat power strategy that we use here at Notre Dame, which is very unique and very efficient, which for years has actually lowered the university's carbon footprint because we operate such an efficient System," says Kempf.

Kempf explains that the biggest cost of the self-funded project is converting campus buildings to get connected to the geothermal network, and it will likely take decades to be completely finished.