Riverside Campus Plan - Office of Facilities Coordination - Texas ...

CURRENT CONDITIONS21UTILITIESThe basic utility infrastructure on RiversideCampus dates back to the military installationsfrom the 1940s and the 1950s, when they weredesigned to accommodate a significant population,though without the energy loads demandedby air conditioning.The water system is supplied by a water well,tower storage and transmission supply from undergroundwells located to the north of the campus.There is an 8” loop for primary distributionthrough aging cast iron piping that is due for replacement.The campus has a significant natural gas (NG)distribution system that was completely replacedin 2004. The NG supply is provided by ATMOSEnergy and distributed through the universityownedsystem.The sanitary sewage system is permitted for100,000 gallons a day, with current peak demandat less than 50% of capacity. Most of the sanitarysewer lines are clay tile dating from the 1940s andwill require replacement within the next ten (10)years, or before any significant development.Surface water drainage consists of bar ditchesalong the road system. While most of the ditchesand culverts have been maintained in reasonablecondition, some of the culverts at intersectionsare in need of replacement.The electrical system from Bryan Texas Utilities(BTU) is capable of providing 7.5 MW of power,with peak use in August 2011 being 1.8 MW.Electrical supply is provided by BTU with thedistribution system owned and operated by TexasA&M University. The entire distribution systemis aging overhead lines with wooden poles andany significant development on the campus willrequire a major electrical system upgrade. Undergrounddistribution will be more expensive toinstall, but will greatly improve both reliabilityof service and visual appearance.The current electrical supply from BTU lacksredundancy and the campus experiences briefpower outages several times a year. This poses aproblem for reliability and power quality.It is recommended that the entire utility infrastructurebe examined with a goal of renewing systemsand services to accommodate future growth. Thegradual removal of inefficient buildings and theuse of more sustainable construction methods fornew buildings mean that energy consumption demandwill likely grow at a slower rate than thesquare footage added for new space, except forunique research demands that may have higherintensity requirements.COMMUNICATIONSThe university replaced all communication distributionwith fiber optic lines in the late 1980s andearly 1990s. The communication hub is locatedat the junction of Avenue B and 2nd Street, adjacentto the water tower. Up until January 2012Riverside had 45MB/sec data processing. Theconnectivity of Riverside Campus has undergonea major upgrade in January 2012 with the completionof a new dedicated fiber optic connectionto the Main Campus. This runs along Highway47, and terminates at the current communicationhub at Avenue B and 2nd Street. To serve futureneeds and growth a secondary communicationshub will be located at Avenue C and 7th Streetin early 2012. The capacity to the campus nowis 1GB/sec and is planned to grow to 10 GB/sec.These new speeds are accessible to most of thecentral part of the campus, but each individualbuilding still may be at 100MB/sec.In order to accommodate remote areas of the