Summit road will be closed today for six to eight hours because of the installation of a new chiller in the Kent State Power Plant. The road is expected to be closed from the traffic light to the Math and Science Building parking lot. There will be detour signs posted.

“We have to close the road because of the size of the chiller and the positioning of the trucks and cranes,” said energy associate director Thomas Dunn. “Everything in the power plant is big; we don’t have anything small in here.”

The road was originally supposed to be closed earlier, but because of transportation permit problems in different, states, it was delayed, campus architect Thomas Euclide said.

The new chiller is being installed to save money and time. The current chiller works off electricity, but the new chiller will recycle excess steam to run, which is much cheaper. The new chiller will not replace the old one but the two will be alternated. It is more expensive to run a chiller during the day, so the steam chiller will be used then and the electric one will be run at night.

Chillers are used to cool water and are a way of air conditioning buildings. Instead of having separate air conditioning units in each building, the chiller provides air conditioning for several buildings.

“The chillers are more difficult and complex but will save time because there are only a few of them for the whole campus as opposed to a separate one for each building,” Dunn said.

All road closures are posted on the University Architect’s Web site at http://www.kent.edu/universityarchitect/ConstructionDetours.cfm.

A– Kelly Cothren