YOUNGSTOWN – The transformation of the former Youngstown thermal power plant into a high-tech, energy-efficient heating and cooling producer is underway, as is a complete shift in the business model behind the process.

Demolition has already begun at the North Avenue site on the city’s north side, the first step in what is expected to be an eight- to 10-month process to rebuild, restore and outfit the plant owned by SOBE Thermal Energy, based in Dublin, Ohio. LLC Systems.

The company, which bought out the assets of the former Youngstown Thermal LLC in receivership in December 2021 but had operated the plant for about two years prior, plans to invest at least $200 million in downtown and nearby. Lowellville, where SOBE plans a hub to collect and shred plastic and rubber tire feedstock for fuel for a new state-of-the-art gasification system to produce steam in Youngstown.

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“I made a commitment to be here and demonstrated that commitment by taking on a leadership role in the Youngstown Thermal company, and invested money in this company before I owned it,” said Dave Ferro, CEO of SOBE.

SOBE assumed the management role in June 2019, the same year it agreed to buy the assets for $250,000, but it took several years to close the deal.

The Vindicator reported in 2019 that Youngstown Thermal went into receivership in 2017 after the Ohio Public Utilities Commission was told by the company’s former CEO that the company was in a financial struggle that could have cause an energy crisis in the city centre. The company could not provide adequate service to its customers and was in danger of insolvency when the PUCO intervened.

The big blow came when Youngstown Thermal lost Youngstown State University as a customer when YSU built its own steam plant. The loss of YSU as a customer revealed underlying financial issues at Youngstown Thermal.

When SOBE came on board, Ferro said there were issues that needed immediate attention – leaks in the distribution system and bypassing the existing plant.

“There were two fundamental problems with the system. The first one was on the consumer side, on the end user side, because the quality of the vapor they were getting was very poor in terms of pressure, in terms of temperature,” Ferro said. “It was poor because there were leaks all over town.”

Ferro estimates that the system was then 30% efficient. Now it’s in the range of 75-80% efficiency with the goal of reaching 90-95%.

Once the leaks were sealed, the improvements moved to the boiler room.

“Every valve, every instrument that works in this system was tied to steam, so I had to produce steam to run the plant, which is never a good thing,” Ferro said. “It’s ineffective.”

The system was disconnected and new infrastructure was built nearby on the property with one boiler to replace three. This work included a direct connection to the nearby household uniform hire with a return to the boiler to use the condensate produced as feed water.

The old factory, in a building built in 1947, is being demolished. The well-known chimneys are expected to be demolished this month.

“We’ve built the building blocks for the next phase, and that next phase is now about rebuilding the facility,” Ferro said.

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Two other buildings on the site will remain. One which was built in 1911 will be converted into a new boiler room with plans to have three new boilers which will run on a synthetic gas which SOBE will produce with natural gas as a secondary source.

“With our technology, instead of buying energy, I will produce my own energy and I want to be paid to do so”, Ferro said.

This is where the Lowellville facility comes in.

There, the plan is to collect and grind plastics and tires to supply the factory. The material will be shipped by rail to Lowellville and trucked to Youngstown, where it will be converted to gas at the plant using indirect heat – a more environmentally friendly process as it produces no hazardous waste and which allows the by-products to be collected and reused.

Ferro is quick to say that the material is not burned.

“We don’t want to use the b-word because we don’t,” he said. “We don’t burn, we convert.”

By-products of this process include coke, which is used in steelmaking, and carbon black, which can be used in tires and multiple other applications. In total, Ferro said, the technology enables seven sources of renewable energy revenue for SOBE.

SOBE has 35 customers in Youngstown, including city-owned buildings. YSU has returned to the system and the downtown DoubleTree by Hilton has a contract, Ferro said.

SOBE is expected to employ about 30 workers downtown and 20-30 in Lowellville.

“We can’t say we’ve been perfect, no one is” said Ferro. “It’s been a long transition from then to now, it hasn’t been without problems or concerns, but we’ve addressed each of them and we’ve come through.”

The facility, which began operations in 1895, is the oldest district heating and cooling facility in the United States. It was designed to generate and distribute steam to heat all businesses in downtown Youngstown using coal as the primary fuel source.