With a $325,000 TIGGER Program grant, the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) is replacing the outdated heating system at its 170,000 square foot Boulder, Colorado maintenance facility with new, high-efficiency boilers. This energy-efficiency upgrade is part of a larger Energy Enhancements Yielding Operational Returns and Efficiency (EEYORE) project at Denver RTD.

RTD is replacing the two existing boilers with four high-efficiency hot water boilers that also include clean burning technology to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission levels compared to the current level. These new boilers also use an advanced, integrated control system for improved climate control—the boilers can be set to turn on and off based on the outside air temperature.

Installing these energy-efficient boilers will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency at the Boulder maintenance facility. Currently, the facility’s boilers consume more than 20,000 million Btu of natural gas per year, operating at an overall efficiency of around 82% with NOx emissions of 45 ppm. The new boilers can achieve overall efficiency of 90%–93% and reduce NOx emissions to 20 ppm.