1065 Main Street
17,540 sq.ft.

St. Anthony Hall houses the Center for Development Economics Program and most of its students. It has 23 single rooms.

Major Construction History

36 North Street
24,950 sq.ft.

About Carter House

Franklin Carter House, commonly known as “Carter,” is a part of the Greylock Quad — known for its brick, slate, and cement architectural features. Carter boasts rooms with huge windows that look over the quad and toward the Williamstown Town Hall. Residents will find small singles arranged into suites with common rooms, and a beautiful kitchen. The Greylock Quad, comprised of Bryant, Mark Hopkins, Carter, and Gladden, is close to the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, and has an easy-access path that leads students to the Paresky Student Center.

Carter is used for upper class student housing. It’s five floors house 70 single rooms. It has no air conditioning. Carter is part of the Wood Neighborhood.

Major Construction History

983 Main Street
10,306 sq.ft.

About Brooks House

Brooks House was named for Captain Belvidere Brooks, class of 1910, who was killed in action at Villesavoye, France, in 1918. During his time at Williams, Brooks was a DKE, captain of the football team, and a Gargoyle. Originally home to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, Brooks now houses both students and, in the summer months, the Conference Office. Located between Spencer and Weston, Brooks houses upperclass students in four single and 12 double rooms on two floors with a spacious basement common room and kitchen. Brooks is part of the Spencer Neighborhood.

Major Construction History

18 Hoxsey Street
90,698 sq.ft.

About Bronfman

Jenny Holzer table detail

In 1962 Professors Fielding Brown and David A. Park of physics, William C. Grant, Jr. of biology, and J. Hodge Markgraf of chemistry instigated and engineered a formal proposal to construct a single new science center which would house all of the science labs. The cross-fertilization of ideas which was the objective of the new center was regarded as a highly innovative concept, and plans for its construction were approved. Over the course of the next four years, contributions and grants were vigorously solicited. The Bronfman family, headed by Charles R. Bronfman, began the funding with a contribution of $1.25 million dollars. In 1964, construction of the new $3.9 million dollar science building, the Bronfman Science Center, began. By 1968, Williams had one of the most sophisticated and innovative scientific facilities of any college. Bronfman currently houses Psychology, Math, science labs and offices.

Major Construction History

33 Stetson Court
11,400 sq.ft.

About Bascom House

Bascom House, the old residence of Beta Theta Pi, is named for John Bascom, Class of 1849, Professor of Sociology, who spoke out against the secret societies (fraternities) at Williams and favored co-education. Bascom currently houses the Williams College Office of Admission.

Major Construction History

100 Spring Street
15,973 sq.ft.

About the B&L Building

Built in 2005 on the corner of Spring and Latham streets, the B&L Building has commercial space on the first floor (Tunnel City Coffee and Where’d You Get That?!), houses the Williams Human Resources offices on the second floor, and has four college rental apartments on the third.

Major Construction History

96 South Street
16,420 sq.ft.

About Agard

Agard House, formerly the Delta Phi Fraternity on South Street, gets its name from Professor of Mathematics (1911-1932), Dean (until 1935), and Director of Admissions (1928-1935) Harry Leslie Agard. Agard boasts a beautiful common room, a country kitchen with stainless steel fixtures and appliances, and beautiful single and double rooms with unique architectural features. Used for upperclass student housing, Agard has six single rooms and 13 doubles on four floors.

Major Construction History

1000 Main Street
26,891 sq.ft.

About the AMT

The Adams Memorial Theatre, dedicated in 1941, was made possible by a then-anonymous gift from the daughter of one John Quincy Adams of Hopkinton, MA for whom the theater is named. While the need for an adequate college theater may have been apparent to Williams’ President James Phinney Baxter III ’14 at the time, he may not have foreseen fully the widespread name it would make for itself as the home of the Williamstown Theatre Festival during the summer months while the College was not in session. In 2005, the AMT was completely renovated and became part of the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance.

Major Construction History

AMT facade before 2005 renovation

Williams College “Black Start” Test for Standby Generation

Over the past three years, Facilities has been upgrading the steam power plant to allow for emergency and standby power generation during the heating season, using our steam turbine generator. All elements are in place and we are ready to test the system, which will require a power shutdown to many parts of campus, and a “Black Start.” Black Start refers to a condition when utility power is not available and a system is started up using only emergency power. The Black Start will determine whether the system can work in a true emergency, and what power generation we can expect. The system has the potential to fully power all campus buildings fed off our central meter using steam-generated electricity.

Because of the complexity of this system, Facilities has hired an Electrical Engineer who is familiar with our plant systems, commissioned a peer review from a third party, and performed an internal review by Facilities staff. We will be conducting staff training to review all of the sequences and responsibilities, and we are preparing detailed emergency protocols.

It should be noted that this test will not only give us information on the standby capability of the Plant but will also give us a chance to exercise the College’s emergency equipment.

Background

In spring of 2003, the new 3 megawatt Steam Turbine Generator (STG) located at the Williams College Central Steam Plant was commissioned along with the driver: a high pressure, high temperature Boiler #3. At that time, a new 480V service was brought into the Plant to drive the auxiliary equipment for this new system. The rest of the plant remained on the original 240V system which was backed up by a 260 kW standby generator. The original Plant (Boiler #1 and #2) could run on emergency power but not Boiler #3 and the STG.

Three years ago, the plant was upgraded to a new 480V system including the emergency generator which has the capacity to energize the entire Plant. This past fall, a variable frequency drive (VFD) was added to the Boiler #3- 100 HP Forced Draft Fan (as an energy conservation project) which will now allow the start up of Boiler #3 and the rolling of the STG on emergency power.

So now, in theory, the College should be able to generate standby power during the heating season and possibly during the cooling season if we are willing to waste steam and the Plant is not shut down for maintenance. The next step is to test the system to learn if this can be done in a safe and reliable manner.

Benefits of the Test

The test will accomplish the following:

• Verify that Standby Power can be generated during a utility outage and delivered to all or a portion of the central  campus buildings
•  Verify the amount of power that can be delivered
• Confirm the locations that can use the standby power
• Define the operational procedures to generate and distribute power in a safe and reliable manner
• Test individual building systems for performance during power fluctuations

What Could Go Wrong

In the worst case, the automatic load control could fail which would trip the breaker to the steam turbine generator. Additionally, the steam flow may be hard to control at start up (this will be done by a manual venting of the turbine exhaust). Inadequate steam pressure could also trip the generator breaker. In either case, the steam generator would not function and no power would get to campus. We would abort the test and Utility Power would be reestablished to the Campus within a short period of time. Buildings with standby or emergency generators on automatic switches would have emergency power in any case. In no instance would any building on campus be without power for more than 6 hours.

Proposed Timing

The proposed time of the test would be March 24, 2012 starting at 6:00 AM (middle weekend of Spring break).

The duration of the test would be six hours, plus or minus. Emergency power will be distributed to buildings sequentially, until we reach our emergency power capacity. The test will end and normal power will be reestablished no later than 12:00 PM.

Buildings Affected

Only buildings which are serviced by our central electric meter will be affected. The attached list outlines which buildings are on the central meter, and which of those buildings have their own emergency generators. Please note that some buildings have standby generators that are on manual switches. These buildings will not have power until the steam generator kicks in, as we will not be deploying staff to manually switch these generators on. (See list of buildings affected.)

If the test goes as planned, the buildings without any independent emergency power could see an outage period of up to 6 hours. The Science buildings are served by standby power which will maintain the animal room and critical equipment as well as power to the red outlets. Jesup Hall will have standby power to its server room, including HVAC systems.

Steam heat to buildings will be temporarily interrupted, however as soon as the steam plant power is restored, steam to buildings will return. We do not anticipate any noticeable temperature changes as a result of the test.

What will happen during this test?

The sequence that would be followed to test the Standby Generation mode would be as follows:

1. 6:00 AM-Open up the main breakers that feed the campus central system- This would kill power to the central part of campus. (See attached building list.) At this time the central buildings would lose normal power and individual emergency systems and some standby generation would start automatically.  The buildings on the periphery of campus that have separate electric service from National Grid will not be affected. (Also see attached list)
2. The Central Plant would now also be on its own emergency generator and the process to restart Boiler #3 would be taking place and the sequence to restart the STG would be taking place.
3. Once the turbine is up to speed and medium voltage breakers are in the correct position the generator breaker would be closed to the distribution system and a priority load would be energized to verify voltage and frequency control. It should be noted that some venting of steam will have to be done at the Plant (roof steam silencer) to add some steam load to the system to maintain adequate flow through the turbine to generate electricity.
4. The next action would be to close the breaker to the medium voltage feeder that serves the Central Steam Plant. This would put the plant power back into the normal mode with the emergency generator off and the STG supplying the “normal power.”
5. The next action would be to start bringing on feeders to the central campus that could be supported by the steam flow and generation. We plan to energize the science first, as these buildings will increase the steam flow enough to then bring on more electric loads.
6. At this time we would verify the capacity of the system under this test mode. The Generator is rated at 3000kW but we need 60,000# of steam flow through the Turbine to reach that level. This would more that satisfy the total campus demand at that time and day of the year. The actual flow that we will see depends on the weather and how much can be vented from the Plant. Too much venting would be wasteful so this will be kept at a minimum.
7. 12:00 P.M.-Once this has been completed and the systems have stabilized the test will be complete and the Campus Power and Steam systems will be put back into the normal mode.