Description
For over 100 years, the Como Park Zoo & Conservatory has played a vital role in meeting the recreational needs of Saint Paul residents and visitors. The variety of building types on the Como campus—including the 65,000-square-foot Visitor Center, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, and a wide range of animal exhibits—require dependable heating, cooling, and water filtration and delivery for year-round operations. These heating and cooling operations lead to substantial energy use and carbon emissions throughout the year.
The City of Saint Paul is committed to the decarbonization of the Como Park & Zoo campus as part of its larger goal to achieve carbon neutrality in municipal operations. In 2016-2017, Como Park & Zoo staff worked closely with Xcel Energy to conduct energy studies and develop a campus-wide energy efficiency plan that could reduce energy use at the campus by 20%. In 2022, the city also completed a Geothermal Feasibility Study for Como Zoo. Both of these efforts identified opportunities for upgrading heating and cooling systems to address operational challenges, decrease maintenance costs, improve energy efficiency, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from zoo operations.
The City of Saint Paul received $2.2 million in FY2023 Federal funding to support the replacement of Como Zoo’s natural gas steam boiler heating in the Primates Building with a more efficient hydrogeothermal heat pump system. During 2024-2025, both the Primates and Polar Bear buildings at Como Zoo will be removed from the inefficient central gas boiler and transition to new geothermal energy systems.
The City of Saint Paul will also implement a range of other energy conservation measures in 2024-2025, including LED lighting upgrades, building envelope improvements, and building automation system and controls updates at multiple facilities on the zoo campus. Collectively, these energy improvements are projected to save $50,000 in energy costs per year for Como Zoo.
