Energy & Utilities
The Energy and Utilities team, consisting of five units with approximately 100 personnel, are responsible for the production, delivery, and management of Virginia Tech's supply-side utilities, as well as the demand-side campus energy consumption for energy efficiency and energy conservation and sustainability. The team also oversees the ongoing development of the Utilitites Master Plan.
- Four 12.5-kilovolt substations
- Eight substation transformers, 95-megawatt capacity (double redundancy)
- 1,283 distribution transformers
- 138 miles of underground cables
- 75 miles of overhead cables
- Meters: 6,343 town/451 campus
- Annual billed load: 147,000 megawatt-hours town/200,000 megawatt-hours campus
- AMI implementation
Chris Cooper
Electric service supervisor (campus operations)
chcoope2@vt.edu
Daniel Criger
Electric service supervisor (town operations)
dcrigger@vt.edu
- Two central chiller plants
- 13.5 miles of chilled water piping
- 16,500-ton rated capacity
- 14,000-ton available capacity
- North plant: five machines (two 3,000-ton and three 1,500-ton)
- Southwest plant: three machines (one 3,000-ton and two 1,500-ton)
- Three small district chiller plants
- 52 distributed chillers across campus
- CHW service contract
Chris Tedder
Chilled water plant supervisor
tedderc@vt.edu
- One 10,000-pound-per-hour boiler
- Three 78,000-pound-per-hour boilers
- 334,000-pound-per-hour superheated steam capacity
- 110,000-pound-per-hour average winter hourly steam load
- 65,000-pound-per-hour average summer hourly steam load
- 6.25-megawatt turbine generator
- 4.3-megawatt average winter output
- 1.6-megawatt average summer output
Todd Robertson
Power plant supervisor
phrobert@vt.edu
- Over 100 miles of distributed infrastructure
- 16 miles of steam tunnels
- 38 miles of storm water sewer
- 38 miles of potable water
- 30 miles of sanitary sewer
- 7 miles of domestic water
Bobby Polly
Associate director of utilities distribution
bpolly@vt.edu
- LED lighting conversions
- Building retro-commissioning
- Energy savings performance contracting (ESPC)
- Building automation systems (BAS) upgrades
- Laboratory ventilation optimization
- Occupancy-based HVAC controls
- Building optimizations
- Campus optimizations
Steve Durfee
Assistant director of CASE and campus energy
sdurfee@vt.edu
In 2018, the university completed its most recent master planning effort resulting in Beyond Boundaries 2047: The Campus Plan. In 2020, the university finalized its Climate Action Commitment, setting goals and Milestones through 2050. The 2022 Utilities Master Plan project will provide the road map to align campus wide utility systems with the Beyond Boundaries development plan and the Climate Action Commitment sustainability goals.
