About us

VCU Engineering and Utilities (E&U) provides engineering and utilities services to the VCU, VCU Health System and some state office buildings. Continue reading to learn more.

Steam Plant

The Steam Plant unit operates and maintains two university central boiler heating plants, an auxiliary enterprise supporting the VCU Medical Center and some state office buildings, and an extensive distribution piping network. E&U staff monitor the heating plants' expenses and establish the steam rate necessary to support the plants' operations, maintenance, repair and replacement for long-term reliability. The main Steam Plant operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year and is staffed accordingly.

Engineering

VCU engineering staff support VCU Planning and Design, VCU Construction Management and VCU Facilities Operations with engineering services, drawing reviews, submittal approvals, specifications and bids for engineered projects. E&U engineers offer advice and recommend short-term and long-term building systems strategies to support VCU's strategic priorities. E&U staff hold seats on the Design and Construction Standards Committee.

Energy management

E&U staff purchases natural gas for the Steam Plant and manages the university's purchased utilities balance (i.e., electricity, natural gas, water, sewage and fuel oil). The unit sponsors and oversees a variety of campus initiatives to improve energy conservation and reduce energy usage costs.

Analytics and engineered services

E&U staff support the operation and maintenance of central servers that communicate with the building controls for heating, ventilation and air conditioning as well as research equipment. E&U staff also monitor building performance data via fault detection software overlaid on the existing databases. Utility expenses are captured in a database that is mined for billing errors. E&U also generates metrics to define how VCU uses energy.

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