Natural gas switch to save USM thousands
University of Southern Maine is no longer using oil to heat its Portland campus after converting its main boiler to natural gas. The school's two campuses in Gorham and Portland are now using natural gas, which the university says should cut its carbon output by 1,048 metric tons a year and put the school a step closer to being carbon neutral by 2025.
Retrofitting Portland's central heating plant, which previously used No. 6 residual oil, cost $270,000, an expense that USM expects to recoup in the first year, according to a press release from the university. The conversion will also save the Portland campus from using 280,000 gallons of oil per year for heat, which annually costs around $610,000, the release states.
The conversion will save the university about $315,000 next year in utility costs, and these savings will go toward needed reinvestments in USM's backlog of infrastructure and physical plant needs, according to the release.
USM's Department of Facilities Management has been working for a number of years with Unitil -- a provider of natural gas to customers throughout New England -- to bring a new pipeline to the Portland campus.
"Early last summer, we received word from Unitil that with our agreement to convert our main boiler to natural gas they would have the fuel available for the 2011 heating season," Executive Director of Facilities Management Bob Bertram said in the release.
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