GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, WASHINGTON D.C.
HEATING, OPERATING, AND TRANSMISSION DISTRICT (HOTD)

The GSA is an agency of the Federal Government that has, as its mission, to “help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies.” GSA consists of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), the Public Buildings Service (PBS), and various staff offices, such as the Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP).

The Heating, Operating and Transmission District (HOTD) owns and operates two steam generating facilities in the National Capitol Region in Washington DC. These Plants provide steam service to 29 GSA public buildings, 49 Federal non-GSA buildings and 12 Non-Federal buildings with a combined area of 52,000,000 gross square feet (GSF). The two steam generating facilities are connected to these 82 facilities through approximately 7 miles of steam distribution piping installed in walk-through tunnels and over 5 miles of direct buried steam / condensate distribution piping.

The Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant (CHRP), located at 13th and C Street SW, was originally designed in 1933 for the Procurement Division of the US Treasury Department and commissioned in 1934. At the time of its initial operation, this plant served 22 Federal buildings and consumed 230 tons of coal a day, making it the largest district heating plant in the United States at that time.

The second plant, the West Heating Plant (WHP), located at 1051 29th Street NW in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., was designed in 1946 and commissioned in 1948 to serve Federal facilities in the western section of the District. These plants were integrated into the GSA when it was established in 1949. In Fiscal Year 2005, the Central Plant produced approximately 2.2 billion pounds of steam, with 1.7 billion in revenue-producing steam sales and the remainder used internally in the plant for deaerating heaters, turbine drives, and condensate flash losses and distribution system losses.

GSA’s HOTD commissioned ISES Corporation to perform a Strategic Planning Analysis of the two steam generating plants and the distribution system in order to derive a “best possible” scenario for future planning. In this analysis, ISES identified performed a complete life cycle assessment of condition and capacity for the two steam generating plants, identified potential sites within the District of Columbia where a new plant might be constructed, evaluated the highest and best use of the existing plant properties, identified the current market value of the two plant sites and projected the technical alternates forward 30 years using discounted income/costs, internal rate of return, utility cost projections and funding scenarios.

In addition, ISES identified cost containment opportunities within the existing operating plant in order to reduce the cost of distributed steam service.