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Successful Plant Conversion at Wright-Patterson

David Bohn

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For 30 years, David Bohn has served in various capacities at Preferred Utilities Manufacturing Corporation in Redding, CT. Starting out as a marketing coordinator, he eventually worked his way up and became president in 1995, a position he has held ever since. Out of his Redding, CT, office, David Bohn has overseen many engineering projects, including the recent conversion of plants at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from coal to natural gas.

In order to comply with new EPA emissions regulations, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base found itself in the position of having to make substantial changes to two central heating plants. The base contracted with Preferred Utilities Manufacturing Corporation, which employed its Preferred Special Combustion Engineering to handle the project.

The steam plant was the first to receive attention. In upgrading the plant to burn natural gas instead of coal, the group was able to reduce peak steam loads, NOx levels, and CO levels beneath all required thresholds. Additionally, these upgrades resulted in a vastly decreased amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Tests show that the conversions cut greenhouse emissions by half. With all work at the steam plant now complete, crews will now move to the high-temperature-hot-water plant conversion.