Maria Regina College Redevelopment Grid Capacity Evaluation
How Much Electric Does All-Electric Housing Need?
Since closing its doors in 1990, the Maria Regina College campus in Syracuse, NY, has sat vacant. Following previous unsuccessful attempts to redevelop the site, Home Leasing is proposing redevelopment of the campus into new affordable housing apartments along with common spaces and a care center.
As a step towards meeting New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“Climate Act”), New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) issued Sustainability Guidelines for current and future affordable housing projects. Per these guidelines, the new Maria Regina College development will be entirely electric.
In order to go electric, the development will require service from the existing electric grid. America’s aged electrical distribution system was not designed to accommodate the high demand of all-electric buildings, and the Maria Regina College redevelopment has the potential to overload the distribution lines.
To determine the impact of the new development on the existing distribution lines, LaBella performed a Grid Capacity Evaluation. We compared the capacity of the distribution lines to their post-construction capacity using existing and public information.
For the proposed redevelopment, our evaluation determined that the required load is well above the rated capacity of the existing distribution line and, therefore, major upgrades will be required. These upgrades could be to the distribution line and/or the electric substation.
LaBella partnered with a qualified electrical contractor with experience in building transmission and distribution lines to complete a high-level concept design and fee for the anticipated upgrades.
