State approves plan for UD to get all electricity from sustainable waste heat recovery

“The University of Dayton has been in the market for more than five years, exploring a long-term sustainable power deal to minimize energy price volatility,” says a joint statement from UD, AES Ohio and Tallgrass Dayton Community Power. “The project is expected to offset 100% of the University of Dayton’s electricity consumption and reduce its total carbon footprint by 71%.”

The statement says the three partners will now negotiate a final agreement consistent with the PUCO order to present to the university board of trustees for approval.

Given that there’s only record of a handful of such systems operating in Ohio, waste heat recovery isn’t exactly common knowledge.

“Any industrial process that is creating heat,” explained PUCO spokesperson Matt Schilling, “you can construct or engineer a device that captures that heat that otherwise would just be vented off into the atmosphere, and use that heat then to redirect it to boil water, to generate steam, and turn a turbine to generate electricity.”

Under this arrangement, Tallgrass Dayton Community Power will create and operate its own waste heat recovery system at nearby compression sites along its thousand-plus mile natural gas pipeline that runs through the region.

The system will capture heat from exhaust stacks of several gas turbines in AES Ohio’s service region that otherwise would have been vented into the atmosphere, convert that heat to electricity, and then sell it to AES Ohio at a fixed, 15-year rate.

AES Ohio will then route the electricity to the University of Dayton “without seeking cost recovery of any kind for such output from other AES customers,” an official summary of the application reads.

Together, Tallgrass, AES Ohio and the University of Dayton argued that new program would further the competitive electricity market and improve Ohio’s standing in the global economy — sentiments that PUCO commissioners largely agreed with.

The facility is expected to begin operating in Q4 2025.