The Cornell Combined Heat and Power Project will add two gas turbine generators, totaling a nominal 30,000 kilowatts of electrical output with heat recovery steam generators, at the current central heating plant. A gas turbine generator, which is a type of internal combustion engine, is a device that converts energy stored in the fuel to useful mechanical energy in the form of rotational power. The gas turbines will combust natural gas to provide the power necessary to turn the electric generators. Exhaust heat leaving the gas turbine electric generator is used by a heat-recovery boiler to produce steam. Steam generated in the waste-heat boiler then produces more electrical power in a steam turbine generator as it goes to campus for heating and thermal needs. An approximately 15,000 square-foot addition south of the existing central heating plant on Route 366 will house the new equipment.
