UAB Steam Plant

Alabama Power Company had constructed the Powell Avenue steam plant more than 60 years ago and supplied steam to the downtown area including UAB. After Alabama power announced the closure of the steam plant, developing an on-campus steam plant became a necessity and a priority for UAB. Bhate Geosciences was retained by UAB after a national search to perform SUE (Subsurface Utility Engineering protocol). We used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and other techniques including any historical data available on file to map the utilities for the north and south loop of the steam line for the design team to lay out the best route with the least conflicts with existing utility infrastructure to lay out the new the piping system. According to UAB’s James Gilliam, Senior PM, the most challenging part of the whole project was considering the existing piping, and electrical and communication cable that has been buried in the past 100 years in this area. BHATE’s SUE utility mapping work was accurate and saved major possible conflicts during construction. Workers had to install more than 20,000 linear feet of the piping — the equivalent of almost four miles — under buildings and roads the throughout campus.