BIG RED Utilities Reliability & Energy Transition

A Roadmap to Reliable, Efficient, Decarbonized Utilities

The Big Picture: Decarbonizing Cornell’s Ithaca Campus Utilities

Decarbonizing the district energy system is one of the most complex components of the Climate Action Plan

Respect for the natural environment is one of Cornell’s core values, and sustainability is central to the university’s academic and research missions and land-grant commitment. Building on a legacy of sustainability leadership, Cornell advances campus infrastructure through its Climate Action Plan (CAP), a living roadmap guiding decarbonization of the Ithaca campus. The CAP addresses emissions not only from campus heating, cooling, and electricity, but also from non-utilities sources such as commuting and air travel. Decarbonizing the district energy system that delivers heating, cooling, and power to more than 14 million square feet in 150 connected buildings is one of the most complex components of the CAP.

Like other public, private, and educational institutions, Cornell’s actions are shaped by many external factors and constraints. Cornell’s decarbonization path is heavily influenced by external factors such as the reliability of New York state’s electric grid, state and federal regulations, and available technology.

To ensure reliability of campus utilities while maximizing carbon reduction in a rapidly changing energy landscape Cornell engineers and researchers are developing a program that will help them plan for the responsible decarbonization of the Ithaca campus district energy system.  This program is called the BIG RED Utilities Reliability & Energy Transition program (BIG RED UR & ET).

Cornell’s District Energy System – Agile, Reliable, Highly Efficient

The ingenuity of Cornell’s district energy system enables the campus to be cooled renewably by Lake Source Cooling and heated almost entirely using waste heat from co-generated electricity

Cornell’s Ithaca campus operates an efficient, adaptable district energy system that produces and distributes electricity, heating, and cooling through an underground campus-wide network. This custom-built system cools the campus renewably with Lake Source Cooling and heats it almost entirely using waste heat from co-generated electricity.

District Energy, Simplified

Individual buildings connected to a district energy system don’t need heating and cooling equipment such as boilers, chillers, or cooling towers. Instead, a central plant produces steam, hot water, or chilled water and circulates it to connected buildings through a closed loop of underground pipes. Heat exchangers in each building extract the heat or cold to use for space heating, hot water heating, laboratory processes, or air-conditioning, and then return the water to the central plant – ready to be reheated or re-cooled and recirculated again. 

District Energy Compared to Individual Building Systems

District energy systems offer greater flexibility than stand-alone building systems. Centralized energy production allows sources to be added or upgraded without disrupting individual buildings, enabling entire networks of buildings to transition seamlessly as renewable energy becomes available. District energy also enhances reliability and resilience, improves energy efficiency, simplifies operations and maintenance, and lowers capital and operating costs as compared to individual building systems.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, district energy is among the most effective strategies for scaling up renewable energy, cutting carbon emissions, and improving local air quality. Today, more than 700 district energy systems operate across the U.S., spanning every state.

Cornell’s District Energy System

The Ithaca campus district energy system has two main components:

• Combined Heat & Power (CHP): Cornell generates electricity and captures the waste heat (normally lost through smokestacks at conventional plants) and repurposes it to heat campus buildings, nearly doubling efficiency. Hydroelectric and rooftop solar power supplements and reduces natural gas electricity generation.
• Lake Source Cooling (LSC): Nearly all campus cooling is produced by Lake Source Cooling, a renewable system that transfers the cold from deep water in Cayuga Lake to a separate circulating loop that then distributes cooling throughout the campus. After the cooling exchange at the lakeshore facility, the lake water, always separate and pure, is returned to the lake. To meet peak demand, this system is backed up by a 4-million-gallon thermal storage tank and three centrifugal chillers.

Explore the Ithaca Campus District Energy System 

YELLOW Electricity Loop: On-campus renewables such as hydroelectric and rooftop solar provide three to five percent of the power on campus. After that, the combined heat and power plant produces electricity onsite using natural gas. A connection to the New York state power grid provides emergency backup power plus an outlet for any excess production. Cornell also invests in offsite renewables, such as solar farms, that produce enough power to offset approximately twenty percent of the annual electricity used on campus

RED Heating Loop: Steam or hot water, co-generated as a byproduct of electricity production, is circulated to provide heat to connected buildings on campus

BLUE Cooling Loop: The Lake Source Cooling facility extracts renewable coldness from the depths of Cayuga Lake, transferring its cooling power to a separate closed loop, which then circulates cooling to connected buildings on campus

District Energy’s Efficiency and Adaptability

The Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system not only generates electricity; it also produces enough heat to meet nearly all campus heating needs. Paired with Lake Source Cooling, this approach delivers exceptional overall efficiency. Cornell utilities engineers are also accelerating reductions in carbon emissions on the Ithaca campus through implementing energy conservation initiatives and converting steam systems to hot water.

Beyond the typical benefits of district energy, Cornell’s system enables:

• the use of waste heat, such as sewer heat recovery and building heat recovery
• reduction of peak demand by aggregating loads from multiple buildings and shifting peak demand with thermal energy storage for smarter demand management
• economies of scale for infrastructure investments
• decarbonizing of existing buildings that lack space or electrical capacity for standalone HVAC systems. 

District Energy, Decarbonization, and the Grid

Cornell’s decarbonization plans rely greatly upon New York state’s transition to a clean electric grid. Until the New York state grid has surplus clean electricity, Cornell’s efficient district system is the best way for the university to provide energy to the Ithaca campus and minimize emissions. District energy also enables Cornell to phase in strategies that reduce existing and future greenhouse gases. These include energy conservation initiatives, system-wide load balancing, reducing refrigerant use, grid responsiveness, thermal storage, and even land management practices that sequester carbon.

Given today’s complex and evolving energy and regulatory environment, replacing the current district energy system before New York state develops a clean electric grid could compromise the reliability of campus utilities and increase Cornell’s carbon emissions until sufficient renewable energy is available.

As the Ithaca campus decarbonizes, it is essential that the university deploys a holistic approach that truly eliminates emissions, rather than simply shifting responsibility for them to fossil fuel-powered electricity sources elsewhere. The university also looks to avoid added electric grid strain or emissions on New York state’s electric grid. 

Navigating the Complex and Evolving Energy Landscapes

The reliability of the New York state electricity grid is strained by rapid growth in demand and uncertainty in supply

Cornell’s path to decarbonizing campus utilities is shaped by significant external factors including:

1. The forecasted reliability of New York state’s electric grid
2. The speed of the state’s electric grid transition to renewable sources
3. The effect of evolving regulatory environments on institutional decisions

1. Reliability of the New York State Electric Grid

The state’s electric grid is designed and managed to prevent large-scale power outages and therefore maintain reliability. However, converging pressures currently threaten this reliability, including retiring fossil fuel-powered generation equipment faster than renewable energy capacity can be brought online; surging demand both from electrification initiatives and from new energy-intensive data centers and semiconductor manufacturing projects. The third pressure is the increasing difficulty of developing clean energy sources due to supply chain constraints, permitting challenges, and policy uncertainty. In an October 2025 press release, the manager of the state’s power grid, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), cautioned “the grid is at a significant inflection point,” with potentially “significant reliability shortfalls within the next ten years.”

2. Transitioning New York’s Electric Grid to Renewables

The timing for New York state’s shift to clean energy is uncertain. For the state to achieve its goals, renewable energy development must replace retiring fossil fuel plants while meeting surging demand for electrification. Achieving this will require a ten-fold expansion of dispatchable emissions-free resources, such as hydrogen, wind, solar, nuclear, and battery storage, each with significant logistical hurdles.

3. Regulatory Environment and its Impact on District Energy Decisions

Cornell’s Ithaca campus utilities are shaped by federal, state, and local policies. Historically, regulations were focused on individual building systems, but as technology advances, policymakers are shifting their focus to regulations for district energy and thermal energy networks. Beyond energy sources and equipment, evolving policies affect alternative solutions such as approved refrigerants for heat pumps, allowable sites for energy development, and the circumstances under which drilling is permitted for ground source heat. Key entities and policies to monitor include:

• NYS CLCPA – Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act
• Draft 2025 NYS Energy Plan
• NYS All-Electric Buildings Act
• IECS (Ithaca Energy Code Supplement)
• US IRA (Inflation Reduction Act)Department of Energy
• NYS Department of Energy Conservation

BIG RED UR & ET – Engineering the Next Generation of Utilities on Cornell’s Ithaca Campus

Cornell is committed to decarbonizing campus utilities, not shifting demand to a less efficient generator in another location

The BIG RED (Building an Innovative Grid for Reliability, Efficiency, and Decarbonization) Utilities Reliability & Energy Transition program (BIG RED UR & ET) is at the core of directing the responsible decarbonization of the Ithaca campus utilities.

Decarbonizing Cornell’s campus utilities system within a complex, evolving energy and regulatory environment is the sort of multi-dimensional, engineering challenge that yields numerous solutions of varying efficiency and effectiveness.

Since an overarching imperative of the Climate Action Plan is to reduce carbon emissions from the Ithaca campus, Cornell’s utilities engineers must responsibly plan in ways that allow university resources to be targeted toward projects that:

• Lead to removing the most carbon from the Ithaca campus emissions and electric system emissions in the near-term
• Maintain the reliability of the district energy system
• Prepare the campus district energy system to connect to the state grid once it has adequate clean electricity, timed for optimal carbon reduction

The Role of the BIG RED UR&ET Master Plan

Cornell is developing a comprehensive energy master plan focused on eliminating fossil fuels from the Ithaca campus district energy system. This master plan will safeguard the campus’s long-term energy resilience with reliable, redundant, and recoverable systems, plus backup solutions to protect critical loads (such as supporting student housing and research) during outages.

This decarbonization master plan, which is dynamic and evolving, is being developed in collaboration with experts from across the university, the Ithaca community, New York state, and partner institutions. This strategy emphasizes evaluating practical, high-impact energy solutions and making strategic use of limited resources to prioritize projects with the greatest potential for reducing emissions.

Current financial and operational challenges may alter the timeline for implementing the master plan recommendations. Aligning the campus-wide transition with natural equipment replacement cycles ensures a thoughtful, efficient path forward.

The UR & ET program, soon aided by the emerging master plan, actively pursues solutions to eliminate fossil fuels used in the Ithaca campus district energy system, whether originating from electricity generated on-site or purchased from the New York state grid.

The UR & ET master plan recommendations are expected in 2026. Please check back for more details about the process and key considerations in the master plan development.

Cornell Utilities – Innovation & Resilience in Practice

Cornell’s sustainable energy innovation is anchored in more than a century of demonstrated expertise, intent, and commitment.

Highly Efficient and Adaptable District Energy System Cornell's Ithaca campus runs on a customized, highly efficient, and adaptable district energy system, which distributes heating, cooling, and electricity through a campus-wide, underground network. The ingenuity of this system enables the campus to be cooled renewably through Lake Source Cooling and heated almost entirely using waste heat from co-generated electricity

Hydroelectric Plant Cornell’s hydroelectric plant reveals an intrinsic institutional commitment to renewable energy – and generate three to five percent of today’s Ithaca campus annual electricity

Energy Conservation Initiatives Cornell’s invests in continuous improvement through energy conservation initiatives, such as automating building control systems, converting campus buildings to LED bulbs, and reusing exhausted heat from buildings, which over twenty-five years has prevented 4.1 trillion Btus of energy from being used (October 2025). The energy saved is equivalent to taking the campus energy plant completely offline for more than one year

Efficient Lake Source Cooling Cornell's Lake Source Cooling is the United States’ first deep water, renewable cooling system, which has eliminated the need for refrigerants, prevented the release of 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide in its first twenty-five years, and continues to save 29 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year

Cornell's Off-Campus Solar Farms On average, renewable energy from Cornell’s investments in solar farms provide 20% of campus electricity – however, on particularly sunny days, renewable production meets 100% of the Ithaca campus demand

Renewable Energy Research & Explorations  Cornell’s explorations in renewable energy, such as poop-to-power systems and Earth Source Heat are advancing low-carbon energy solutions and green building advances

Ongoing Investments in Green Buildings Campus building renovations or new design and construction are held to carbon reduction and energy efficiency standards that embed sustainability from design through construction and ongoing maintenance – illustrated in the green buildings on campus and Cornell’s design and construction guidelines

Updating Existing Systems For buildings not connected to district energy, such as the Cornell Child Care Center, Cornell retrofits sustainable energy options, such as electric powered ground source heat pumps