Comment by nerdsniper
4 hours ago
Many cities/towns in the USA have small power plants in them (typically associated with a University, large hospital system, or central business district) which "sell" not just power, but also hot water, and steam. The steam is typically used to heat buildings. Google for "$CITY steam tunnels" or "$CITY CHP plant" to find these in your area.
San Francisco has[0][1][2][3] at least five combined heat and power plants that generate electricity and also sell steam to neighboring buildings via 72,000 feet of pipes.
I worked at a privately-owned for-profit "factory" in Santa Monica whose primary product was chilled water (their other product was warm water). They built pipelines to nearby large buildings and sold chilled water to them.
0: https://cordiaenergy.com/locations/san-francisco-3/ (2 for-profit CHP plants)
1: Skanska (for-profit)
2: San Francisco General Hospital
3: Apparently there are some "Muni" CHP plants scattered about SF as well (publicly-owned)
No comments yet
Contribute on Hacker News ↗