Steamgenerating power plant proposed for Kendall Square

The owner of a Kendall Square plant is launching a project to generate steam for Boston and Cambridge by drawing water from the river that runs between them Vicinity Energy, the private equity-backed owner of Boston’s and Cambridge’s steam system, has signed an agreement with MAN Energy Solutions to build a low-temperature source heat pump system at Vicinity’s plant near Cambridge’s Kendall Square, to make steam. The source of those low temperatures? Water from the Charles River. Vicinity is already retrofitting its Kendall plant, which uses natural gas to fire its steam boilers and an electricity-generating turbine that also produces steam from its excess thermal energy. The company is replacing one of those gas-fired steam turbines with a boiler that will run off the electric grid, a $20 million project that will provide steam to customers who pay a premium for it to come from renewable electricity. Vicinity will procure that power from renewable sources such as wind and solar plants, and distribute the “green” steam to customers — starting with a lab complex near Fenway Park being constructed by developer IQHQ. The deal with MAN, a German subsidiary of car maker Volkswagen, could allow Vicinity to offer another green alternative that can reach more buildings at a lower price. The goal is for the giant industrial-sized heat pump to generate 40 percent of Vicinity’s steam for Boston and Cambridge; the company provides steam that heats or cools as many ascan heat more thanabout 70 million square feet of buildings (the equivalent of nearly 670 Prudential towers) in the two cities. “The amount of thermal energy that’s in that river that is flowing by is huge,” Vicinity CEO Bill DiCroce said. “It’s an untapped renewable resource that flows by every day. The tech hasn’t been there to tap into it [before]. We’ll now have it. We’re leveraging so much existing infrastructure.” DiCroce said MAN already makes these heat pump setups in Europe, for hot water. This one, though, will use bigger and more powerful compressors. Because the system is using the river’s thermal energy, it will return the water back to the Charles at a cooler temperature, by some five degrees Fahrenheit. The system will take up to 80,000 gallons a minute from the river, he said.