Fordham University is reducing its environmental impact by installing fuel cells on the Rose Hill campus. The first fuel cells were installed at Walsh Family Library in 2019 as a pilot program. Now, Fordham is installing fuel cells at Campbell Hall, O’Hare Hall, Tierney Hall and John Mulcahy Hall. Installation began in September and is expected to be completed by this summer, according to Nelida LaBate, Grants Proposal and Funding Manager for the Office of Sustainability.
The new fuel cells will create much more energy than the ones at the library, which only service the one building. The new fuel cells will power 80% of the Rose Hill campus, with the remaining 20% of energy coming from grid power through Con Edison, Fordham’s energy company.
“We are using the fuel cells for electricity production on campus as part of a blended utility commodity buying strategy,” said Vincent Burke, director of sustainability, in an email. “This ensures we have a diversified portfolio of both grid and off-grid power.”
Fuel cells are machines manufactured by Bloom Energy that produce electricity through an electrochemical process. They are better for the environment than typical energy sources like power grids because they use natural gas and small amounts of water to produce energy. According to Burke, Bloom Energy’s fuel cells produce 99% less smog than the power grid. The machines also recycle most of the water used, which Bloom Energy says will save millions of gallons of water per year.
In addition to reducing Fordham’s environmental impact, fuel cell installation also reduces costs for Fordham. According to LaBate, by generating power on campus, Fordham will only be paying for the energy that the University uses, making it cheaper than buying energy from a utility.
“Its major importance is that we’re saving costs. It gives us cost certainty, because we are generating power on campus, and we’re only paying for the energy that we are using, as opposed to buying from the utility, where who knows how the prices will be [in] the next couple years,” LaBate said.
Heat on Fordham’s campus might also be produced by fuel cells in the future. According to Burke, Bloom Energy is working on converting the fuel cell systems into combined heat and power plants (CHPs). They hope future fuel cells can reuse the heat generated in the cells during energy production. Fordham hopes to utilize these services once they become available.
Burke says using fuel cells on Fordham’s campus will help enormously reduce our emissions, supporting Fordham’s sustainability goal of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030. He says the machines will especially benefit future electrification projects.
“Producing this amount of energy cost-effectively on campus will enable future electrification projects to reduce emissions,” Burke said in an email. “Also, with the anticipated technological shift towards making fuel cells carbon-capturing, CHP systems will also have an impact but further down the line.”
The Office of Sustainability hopes to install more fuel cells on campus in the future. According to LaBate, Fordham is currently in the design process for installing another fuel cell at Larkin Hall.
Stephen Holler, associate professor and chair of the physics and engineering physics department, believes installing fuel cells on campus is essential to reduce Fordham’s environmental impact. He says energy is a central part of our society, and we must produce it sustainably.
“We need energy to maintain our society, to maintain, you know, the way civilization is working,” said Holler. “We become accustomed to it. And so it’s important to have a sustainable or ongoing energy source.”
