Webster U. To Add Electric Substation, Cooling Tower

Webster University will be installing a new chiller and cooling tower plant in the East Academic Building (pictured above). The chiller and cooling tower project is scheduled to start as early as mid-May and be completed by late August. photo by Diana Linsley (click for larger version)

May 09, 2014

An important reason for the project is the university's planned interdisciplinary science building that will be located near the East Academic Building, Greg Gunderson, the university's chief financial officer and vice president, said at one of two meetings the university sponsored on April 30. The East Academic Building is located at 545 Garden Ave.

"That new facility will require an enhancement to provide more capacity for heating and cooling," he said.

"Also, the area's electrical grid supporting Webster Groves has reached capacity, and we need to install a new electrical substation to take the university off that grid," he explained. "We'll help the city by freeing up the university's loads on the local electrical grid and allowing more capacity for growth in the Webster Groves community.

"By rerouting campus electrical lines underground, our work will also let us eliminate overhead power lines, beautifying the campus," he continued.

"When we built our East Academic Building and Webster Groves High School built its addition, we had shared a substation, which is now at capacity due to all the campus buildings tied in, as well as local homes and other uses, and Ameren Missouri told us we needed to build our own substation," Miller said.

About one mile of new underground electrical ductbank with manholes and more than three miles of underground electrical conduit extending from the electrical customer substation will be installed to serve various university buildings during the first phase of work.

Miller said the installation will look to the future.

"We only need four conduits on Garden Avenue but we're putting in eight to serve us for 20 or 30 or 40 years out," he said. "The substation will have a slab available for a second transformer if it's needed in the future."

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Webster U. To Add Electric Substation, Cooling Tower