For four years, Fresno State has been working with officials from the Bulldog Infrastructure Group (BIG) to update and replace the university’s Central Utility Plant. On Wednesday, Jan. 22, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour was held in the Facilities Management corporation yard, in honor of the Central Utility Plant Replacement project’s (CUPR) completion.
The project is a 33 year partnership with Meridiam, the owner company of BIG, and Fresno State. It was the largest public-private utility partnership in the entire California State University (CSU) system, Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval explained in his speech at the ceremony.
Their goal was to increase the efficiency of the chilled and hot water generation and distribution, meaning that more than 25,000 students, staff and faculty members will now have more reliable and effective cooling, heating and ventilation services.
“With this project, we’re going to have cleaner energy, [and] we’ll be more energy efficient as well,” Jiménez-Sandoval said. “We’ll have really good heating and really good cooling for the entire campus, so we won’t be depending on bad energy, it’ll be really good energy.”
President Jiménez-Sandoval also expressed his gratitude for the financial help provided by the CSU. He said that the reformation would not have been possible without them.
Important figures who were involved with the process of completion spoke at the ceremony, including Jiménez-Sandoval, Debbie Adishian-Astone, the Fresno State vice president for administration and chief financial officer of emerita and Nicolas Rubio of CEO Americas and Meridiam.
“We started this effort back in 2018 when we realized, if we are going to be able to support our campus from a growth standpoint and business continuity, we need to replace our infrastructure,” Adishian-Astone said. “It’s very exciting, and all of the thank yous go to, of course, our campus team, our facilities team, everybody who helped make this happen.”
Michael Bouwman, the director of construction with NORESCO, discussed his experience working with what he estimated to be 150 on-site workers.
“I’ll tell you what, we couldn’t do the job without the day-to-day tradespeople,” Nouwman said.“Often they’re looked upon, maybe indifferently, not respectfully, [but] to me, I think I have the utmost respect for the welders, for the engineering operators, the lead foreman; everyday, it’s hard. I mean, they’re out here working in 115 degree weather, and they’re not phased by it.”
The CUPR project, on top of the general challenges of setting a major affair like this in motion, was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This presented its own set of challenges and drawbacks, Nicolas Rubio explained.
“Of course [with] COVID, there was a big stress in the supply chain,” Rubio said. “I think it’s over 300,000 hours of work, and finally, it was always challenging, but successful.”
For the average individual at Fresno State, this means warmer showers in the dorms, better air-conditioning in the summertime and better heating in the winter. All of which now leave a smaller carbon footprint on the environment.
Conor Righetti, a Fresno State alumnus and a California climate action corps member, attended the ceremony as a viewer.
“I think that this project will especially reduce energy use, which could be helpful in the long-term goal of reaching net zero emissions in the future for the Fresno State campus,” Righetti said.
After four years, hundreds of thousands of hours, and extensive efforts exerted by everyone involved, the red ribbon was cut, and the Central Utility Plant was born. This project directly changes the way that the Fresno State campus runs, the way that energy is received, and the way it is put out.
