Museum directors have a tough job. They have to maintain a pristine indoor environment to preserve their collections while often dealing with a limited budget. Learn how innovative museum facilities are using natural gas equipment to maintain their indoor environment while saving energy and improving power reliability.
Gas humidifier lowers energy costs
The Glenn H. Curtiss museum in Hammondsport, New York, focuses on preserving the history of flight. Proper humidity levels are critical to preserve the artifacts, which are made from a variety of sensitive materials.
The facility engineer chose a gas-to-steam humidifier instead of an electric humidifier because of the following advantages:
- Lower operating and maintenance costs
- Chemical-free humidification
- No ductwork required to distribute steam in large spaces
- Fits in the space allotted
No additional unit was required to humidify the 2,000 cubic feet per minute outdoor air continuously supplied by the rooftop air conditioners.
Going green with natural gas
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City earned LEED Gold certification in 2017. The building contains a combined heat and power (CHP) plant with a gas reciprocating engine, which generates electricity for space heating.
The museum also relies on condensing boilers, which use waste heat to pre-heat the water entering the boiler. These boilers have a 2.7 MMBtu-per-hour capacity, a peak efficiency of 91% and an average efficiency of 88% with modulating flame burner control.
Natural gas keeps things cool
The 100,000-square-foot Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum gets 95% of its energy from 16 microturbines. It also provides electricity for the Air Force One Pavilion, home to Air Force One, tail number 27000, which flew seven U.S. presidents.
The installed system consists of three packages, each with four microturbines and an absorption chiller, along with four standalone 60-kilowatt microturbines.
In addition to producing 960 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, the microturbines provide heating and cooling for the buildings. The direct exhaust-fired absorption chillers capture thermal energy from the microturbines to provide 387 tons of refrigeration for cooling the library and pavilion.
Waste heat recovered for humidifier
The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is the largest science museum housed in a single building in the Western hemisphere. The 665,000-square-foot museum installed a steam generator to recover almost 3.5 MMBtu per hour of wasted energy from a 1,750-kW natural gas engine used for combined heat and power.
This waste heat is used for space heating and to run a desiccant dehumidifier. The CHP system provides up to 80% of the museum's heat, hot water and electricity.
The Toledo Museum of Art is also recovering heat from six gas-powered microturbines for generating 180°F hot water for space conditioning and domestic use. Recapturing waste heat helps manage the indoor environment required by the museum — 70°F at 50% relative humidity. The microturbines provide 15% of the museum's electricity and reduce overall energy costs, saving more than $100,000 per year.
As these examples show, museums are taking advantage of natural gas equipment to help keep their collections safe from poor indoor air quality and loss of power.
Request to be contacted by an energy adviser who can provide a targeted set of energy-efficiency recommendations for your business with a 10-15 minute phone call. Your energy adviser can also help find Focus on Energy incentives to maintain or replace your natural gas equipment with qualified energy efficient equipment.