History of Cornell University - Infrastructure Innovations

Infrastructure Innovations

Cornell was one of the first university campuses to use electricity to light the grounds from a water-powered dynamo in 1883. In 1888-89, Cornell installed a central steam distribution system encased in logs. This eventually grew to three district plants on the Engineering Quadrangle, behind the Arts College, and on the state campus (located in Beebe Hall). In 1904, the present hydroelectric plant was built in the Fall Creek gorge following the replacement in 1896 of Triphammer Dam slightly west of its original location. The plant takes water from Beebe Lake through a tunnel in the side of the gorge to power up to 1.9 megawatts of electricity. The plant continued to serve the campus's electric needs until 1970, when local utility rates placed a heavy economic penalty on independently generating electricity. The abandoned plant was vandalized in 1972, but renovated and placed back into service in 1981.

In 1986-87, a cogeneration facility was added to the central heating plant to generate electricity from the plant's waste heat. A Cornell Combined Heat & Power Project, which was completed in December 2009, shifted the central heating plant from using coal to natural gas and enable the plant to generate all of the campus's non-peak electric requirements.

In the 1880s, a suspension bridge was built across Fall Creek to provide pedestrian access to the campus from the North. In 1913, Professors S.C. Hollister and William McGuire designed a new suspension bridge that is 138 ft (42 m), 3.5 in. above the water and 500 ft (150 m) downstream from the original. However, the second bridge was declared unsafe and closed August 1960 to be rebuilt with a replacement of the same design.

Cornell began operating a closed loop, central chilled water system for air conditioning and laboratory cooling in the 1963 using centralized mechanical chillers, rather than inefficient, building-specific air conditioners. In 2000, Cornell began operation of its Lake Source Cooling System which uses the cold water temperature at the bottom of Cayuga Lake (approx 39 °F) to air condition the campus. The system was the first wide-scale use of lake source cooling in North America.