Underground power plant might be built in SoMa
By: John Upton
November 17, 2008
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| Commuters catch their buses at the Transbay Terminal. City officials are developing plans for an underground power plant to service proposed high-rise buildings on the site of the current terminal. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner) |
SAN FRANCISCO — As controversy rages about if a power plant should be built or rebuilt in southeast San Francisco, city officials have quietly been developing plans for a separate underground plant to service planned high-rise buildings in SoMa.
Massive amounts of power will be needed for the planned 1,000-foot Transbay office tower and rebuilt Transbay Transit Center at Mission and First streets, and for the thousands of new homes and millions of square feet of office space expected to be built in the coming decades in the South of Market neighborhood.
The privately owned and operated plant would be designed so it could eventually run on hydrogen fuel cells instead of fossil fuels, Environment Department building official Mark Palmer said. Hydrogen fuel cells are an emerging type of technology that can be recharged using renewable or non-renewable power.
Waste heat from the plant would be trapped and used to warm water for a combined heating district, dramatically improving the plant’s efficiency and eliminating the need for individual heating and cooling systems, which are often built on rooftops, according to Palmer.
“Instead of having a boiler and an air-conditioning plant in every building in a certain district, you could build a central facility that would provide heating and cooling for all the buildings,” Palmer said.
Combined heating districts, which are common throughout the world, can double a power plant’s efficiency by reducing the amount of heat that is wasted, according to Palmer. The districts also maximize useable space in new buildings.
About 170 buildings in San Francisco are already heated and cooled using a similar network of steam created by non-electricity producing boilers at Jessie Street between 5th and 6th streets and near the corner of Post and Hyde streets, according to NRG Energy, which owns the system. The steam can be seen wafting up from city streets.
Eric Brooks, chairman of the San Francisco Green Party’s Sustainability Working Group, pointed to climate change and said The City should spend generously on a plant that runs on hydrogen cells that are recharged using renewable energy.
“Building any fossil fuel power plant — even if it’s really efficient — is a bad idea,” Brooks said.
A feasibility study, expected to be published within eight weeks, will determine how much power and heat will be needed by new SoMa buildings and whether it could be provided by a subterranean natural gas-burning power plant, according to San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Project Manager Mike Grisso.
By the numbers
40 acres Former freeway land to be redeveloped around Transbay Transit Center
3,450 New homes planned in redevelopment area
6 million square feet New office space expected near Transbay Transit Center
1,000 feet Proposed height of Transbay Tower
800 feet Maximum proposed height for some buildings near the Transbay Tower
850 feet Height of the Transamerica building — currently The City’s tallest
2014 Expected opening of new Transbay Transit Center
Sources: San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, San Francisco Planning Department
