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wbjournal.com | November 14, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 9 $205 billion by 2030, according to the India-based market intelligence firm Infinity Business Insights. Independence from the volatile power grid Saint-Gobain is a global company with facilities in 75 countries and more than 166,000 employees. e Worcester cam- pus was opened in 1885 as the Norton Co. In 1960, Norton went public, and Saint- Gobain bought it in 1990. e Worcester outpost serves as the French's company's North American flagship headquarters and manufactures grinding and cutting wheels. e new powerhouse is part of Saint- Gobain's concerted effort to cut its carbon emissions. e company is working with utility parent National Grid to meet better energy-efficiency standards: updating its equipment, technology, and doing small things like installing LED lights. But a big part of the plan to cut its carbon footprint by 2050 is the new powerhouse. It's the kind of centerpiece project that makes the company adaptable because it not only provides resources for the factory, but puts it in a position of power when it comes to dealing with utilities and helping the neighborhoods around it. Saint-Gobain's new powerhouse not only supplies the factory but is connected to the local electrical grid, which will allow Saint Gobain to use power from the utilities if repairs or updates are needed to the system. In case of emergency, it can provide electricity to nearby neighbor- hoods during a power outage or natural disaster. In the current climate and marketplace, the move to a new cogeneration plant connected to the grid seems prescient. Electricity prices are going up. ere's no avoiding that. National Grid requested a price hike because of the rising costs of electricity coming from power plants, thanks to global issues emanating from the War in Ukraine. National Grid elec- tricity prices are up 60% from last winter, and natural gas prices are 20% more than this time last year, according to the company. On Oct. 27, Eversource Energy President and CEO Joe Nolan wrote a letter to President Joe Biden, warning him the short natural gas supplies could soon cause outages in New England. Energy is a commodity, and right now it's in the midst of a transition from the knowable climate-damaging and nonre- newable fossil fuels to more renewable energy production, which still has years to go before it becomes the major supplier of electricity and heat. Add the seemingly constant turbulence in the fossil-fuel mar- ketplace, and this time makes sense for companies like Saint-Gobain to reinvest in their power and heating grids, much like large companies and colleges did in the 1970s when cogeneration plants were touted and encouraged by the federal government because of the numerous fuel crisis during the decade. Rising cost of electricity The average price, in cents, of a kilowatt hour of electricity in New England has risen steadily over the last four years. 2018 0.195 0.194 0.194 0.194 0.196 0.196 0.193 0.193 0.193 0.194 0.196 0.197 2019 0.205 0.205 0.204 0.204 0.204 0.205 0.194 0.194 0.194 0.194 0.198 0.198 2020 0.208 0.208 0.208 0.208 0.205 0.205 0.204 0.195 0.195 0.195 0.198 0.198 2021 0.207 0.208 0.209 0.213 0.210 0.211 0.205 0.207 0.208 0.213 0.220 0.220 2022 0.244 0.244 0.246 0.249 0.249 0.251 0.261 0.266 0.265 Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Innovating for the future e U.S. government began to push for cogeneration during the 1970s when there was an energy crisis, which fueled a fear of ongoing global shortages of petroleum, said Michael Ahern, director of power systems at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. is push gave companies their own fuel sources and heating sources and took them off the utility grid, allowing them to go into the fuel market directly. ey saved money on heating costs because now they didn't have to burn more fuel or use more energy consumption to heat their facilities or manufacturing plants. Cogeneration is the combination of heat and power used at the same time from a single fuel source, like natural gas. e fuel source used to create electricity expels some sort of waste gas or gasses as part of exhaust, and that is then used to produce heat. It's a two-for-one scenario. "[Cogeneration] is efficient," Ahern said. "If you need both [heat and electricity], they can be a good package." Clark University in Worcester has its own co-generation plant, built in 1979. Originally, it used diesel fuel to power and heat the campus, but it was eventually updated to run on natural gas. Clark physics professor Charles Agosta is thinking about what is next for the university's power and heating, as it looks for solutions going forward to limit its carbon footprint and find more environmentally friendly and economically savvy ways of powering the campus. "Cogeneration is a great idea, but it's near the end of its life," said Agosta, who teaches a course on renewable energy and technology. "Within 20 or 30 years, we want to get rid of fossil fuels and not even burn natural gas to generate energy." To get off of fossil fuels, large campuses like the ones at global production facilities and college campuses like Clark, WPI and others, officials need to start thinking of other ways to generate power and heat as well as ways to cool buildings in the summers, especially as global temperatures continue to rise. One way is to branch out into microgrids, where the power is shared when it's needed among facilities and buildings. It's getting off the power grid all together by using renewable energy like solar panels and wind farms to create energy during the day and store it in solar cells and batteries so it can be used when needed, to say charge a fleet of electric vehicles. It's about using existing steam tunnels from the cogeneration plants to store and reuse water and steam to heat and cool via geothermal pumps. All of this pays off in the long run too, because campuses can run off the grid when the next natural disaster strikes, giving them the freedom to fix any issues and not be beholden to the utility companies. W High-pressure piping delivers steam from the powerhouse to areas of the Saint-Gobain facility needing heat.