CSU building Powerhouse Energy Institute

FORT COLLINS – CSU plans to build a new $18.5 million energy institute funded by private donors such as Woodward Inc. and Bohemian Foundation, the university announced Monday.

The university’s new Powerhouse Energy Institute will house the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory expansion that’s taking place in the historic power plant building in North Old Town. It also will contain former Gov. Bill Ritter’s Center for the New Energy Economy and the Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Industrial Assessment Center.

Several other energy programs from inside and outside CSU likely will move into the institute as the addition takes shape in the next year.

Woodward is contributing $2.5 million and the Bohemian Foundation is giving $5 million for the $18.5 million, 65,000-square-foot expansion.

The project will allow for greater collaboration between CSU energy faculty members across all eight of its colleges and ensure broad access to new facilities for faculty and industry partners, the university said.

“The expansion and creation of the Institute follows the successful model used at CSU in infectious disease research, which combines faculty, a supercluster, physical lab space and an incubator,” Bill Farland, CSU vice president for Research, said in a statement. “Powerhouse will replicate this ecosystem for the energy space at CSU.”

Woodward’s contribution continues a research and development relationship that the company has enjoyed with the university the past two decades.

The engines and energy lab complements Woodward’s clean-energy mission, CEO Tom Gendron said in the statement. The Fort Collins company makes engine-control systems.

“The students we have hired from the EECL are prepared to succeed because of the lab’s culture of innovation and have experience solving real-world, global engineering challenges,” Gendron said.

CSU will continue through 2014 a fundraising campaign that so far has relied on private capital, including support from the Downtown Development Authority and the Gates Family Foundation. The university now is launching a public fundraising campaign to raise $8.5 million to complete the building.

The university said the project will represent “one of the most sustainable and energy-efficient buildings ever built.”

It will make use of renewable energy, nighttime cold storage for cooling, combine heat and power, advanced light-emitting diode lighting and sophisticated day-lighting controls.

The building will cost less than $200 per square foot to build, which represents among the lowest costs ever for what is expected to be a LEED Platinum building.

The CSU Research Foundation has an 80-year lease of the site with the city of Fort Collins. The university will pay no more than a few dollars annually for the property.

“This is an excellent example of community partnerships: private industry, nonprofits, government and education working together to support job growth and the regional economy,” City Manager Darin Atteberry said in the statement.

The engines and energy lab also will partner with the nonprofit science and technology incubator Rocky Mountain Innosphere to promote the development of a regional entrepreneurial environment in Northern Colorado, the university said. The Innosphere will manage space at the institute to focus on startups emerging from CSU labs.

The Innosphere will participate “with the goal of producing successful businesses that leave CSU financially viable and freestanding,” CEO Mike Freeman said in the statement.

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