By Nicarlyle Hanchard / The Jambar
Youngstown State University was recently called to offer steam assistance for the City of Youngstown on Oct. 3.
SOBE Thermal Energy Systems lost its ability to provide heating and cooling services to several residential buildings in downtown Youngstown on Sept. 30.
John Hyden, YSU associate vice president of Facilities and Support Services, said city officials reached out to YSU toward the end of September in anticipation of SOBE’s shortfall in steam power.
“I had gotten some indication from some folks with the city that they were concerned about what was going on with SOBE energy,” Hyden said. “Then about two weeks ago, we officially got a call from the [Public Utilities Commission of Ohio], and the City of Youngstown wanted to meet with us because they saw that SOBE energy was in imminent danger of shutting down, which is what ended up happening.”
Hyden said, though feeding steam into SOBE’s pipes may have been the first option for some, it was not for YSU officials.
“That was the first plan for some folks — that seemed to be an easy solution for the city and PUCO,” Hyden said. “However, the first option in our minds was to just replace the boiler that was being removed from SOBE’s property with a like boiler so that they could just continue providing steam to the district as they were.”
The pipes currently owned by SOBE were once owned by Youngstown Thermal. It connected YSU to the district plant when the university was purchasing steam from the company. Hyden said in attempts to backfeed steam, one of the pipes was found to have a sizable leak.
“What we did was reestablish that connection and tried to put steam into their lines to backfeed their system, and we found the first pipe we put it in had a pretty substantial leak,” Hyden said.
Over the past year, SOBE had legal issues with Wabash Power Equipment Company. Following a court order, Wabash removed its mobile boiler from SOBE’s property.
Hyden said the damaged pipe will not affect YSU’s operations. He also said that YSU does not intend to become a district supplier.
“We don’t want to be a public utility, we don’t want to supply steam to [the] district system, but in the event of an emergency that was going on, as a good neighbor and good business partner with the City of Youngstown, we were going to do what we could to help out,” Hyden said. “Unfortunately, we were unable to accomplish that.”
Jesse Wallace, YSU associate director of Facilities Maintenance, stated the steam produced is used for domestic heating purposes.
“The Central Utility Plant steam is used for domestic and building heating systems across campus,” Wallace stated. “Though we could use this for cooling, as well through absorption chillers, we have electric centrifugal chillers that provide cooling to campus during cooling season.”
The Jambar reached out to CEO of SOBE David Ferro, and at the time of print, the company did not respond to a request for comment.