Philadelphia Heat Supplier Shifts From Oil To Natural Gas

Scott Detrow

Recent Stories

Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

January 14, 2013 | 10:55 AM

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Chairman Rob Powelson cut the ribbon today on a $60 million upgrade to the power plant that runs the Center City steam loop.

The century-old facility, which provides steam heat to 300 Philadelphia customers, has converted from fuel oil to natural gas. The Inquirer has more on the upgrade:

By installing new natural gas boilers and expanding the pipeline that delivers gas to the plant, Veolia will virtually eliminate the plant’s use of high-sulfur fuel oil to produce steam for the system’s 300 customers, including some of the city’s most prominent buildings.
Natural gas costs less than fuel oil, so the bills for Veolia’s customers should decrease. And natural gas burns more cleanly than oil, so the plant will emit 93 percent less sulfur dioxide, 20 percent less nitrogen oxide, and 70,000 fewer metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.
Veolia is marketing the improvements to property owners who face increasing pressure to be more environmentally conscious. Under a new city law, large commercial buildings must report their energy consumption to government, which will “benchmark” properties for efficiency. Veolia customers will be able to take credit for a share of the efficiency improvements.