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Chronological List of District Heating
Systems in the United States |
In 1888, the proprietors of the Grand Opera House in Indianapolis requested electric light and steam heating service from the new Marmon-Perry Lighting Company, which the following year installed a small plant nearby to light several buildings and also heat the Opera House with exhaust steam piped through 250 feet of four-inch pipe
Indianapolis soon turned to natural gas for its heating needs, but the depletion of local gas fields at the tum of the century led to installation of several new low pressure steam and hot water district heating systems in the Indiana capital. These combined heat and power systems were finally merged together in 1927 to form Indianapolis Power and Light, which recently became a subsidiary of IP ALCO Enterprises and is now the second-largest district energy utility in the United States.
The system was acquired by Citizens Thermal in March, 2000.
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| 1915 Map of Indianapolis Steam and Hot Water Systems |
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| 1951 Map of Indianapolis Steam System |
References
1887 Sanborn
Fire Insurance Map from Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana,
Volume 2 (1887)
Plate 41: Grand Opera House
1900 "Cost
of Hot Water Heat," Indianapolis Journal, October 1, 1900,
Page 8
Details of proposed Yaryan hot water system for Home Heating and Lighting
Company.
1903 "The Central Heating Plants of Indianapolis," William King Eldridge, Tenth Annual Convention of the American Society of Municipal Improvements 10:109-112 (October 1903)
1903 "The Central Heating Plants of Indianapolis," by W.K. Eldridge, Municipal Engineering 25(5):359-361 (November 1903)
1904 "Steam Heating from a Central Station," by F.B. Hofft, Engineering News 51(2):68-69 (21 January 1904)
1904 "Combined Heating and Lighting Central-station System in Indianapolis," Western Electrician 34(22):421-422 (28 May 1904)
1908 Annual
Report of the Indiana Engineering Society, Volume 28
Page
142: Indiana Central Station Heating Plants, January 1, 1908
1913 Proceedings of the National District Heating Association 5:18-25 (May1913).
1914 Annual
Report of the Public Service Commission of Indiana for the Fiscal Year
Ending April 14, 1914
Pages 243-246: Names of Towns and Corporations, showing kind of
service furnished. Eight towns have heating service
1915 District
Heating: A Brief Exposition of the Development of District Heating and
Its Position Among Public Utilities, by S. Morgan Bushnell and
Frederick Burton Orr
Pages 5-6: In the city of Indianapolis, there is a large amount of
heating business. There were formerly three companies furnishing district
heating, the Merchants' Heat and Light Company, the Indianapolis Light and
Heat Company and the Home Heat and Light Company. The first two
distributed heat by means of exhaust steam from the engines of their
electric lighting stations, while the last used a hot-water system; the
water for this system being largely heated by exhaust steam. Recently the
plant of the Home Heat and Light Company was bought up by the Merchants'
Heat & Light Company, leaving at present two companies in the field.
Pages 14,16: The map showing the heating mains of the Merchants'
Heat & Light Co. of Indianapolis, Ind., is interesting on account of
the fact that it shows not only a steam heating system in the downtown
district, fed from two boiler plants on the opposite sides of the city,
but also a hot-water system supplied from a single plant in the residence
district. The hot-water system consists of about 52,000 lin. ft. of
underground pipe line, and supplies about 450,000 sq.ft. of hot-water
radiation. The steam heating system consists of about 43,000 lin. ft. of
underground pipe lines and supplies about 900,000 sq.ft. of radiation.
Page 15: Map of system
1918 The
story of Indianapolis, by Logan Esarey
Pages 911-913: Natural gas
1919 Annual Reports of the Pubic Service Commission of Indiana 1919-1933
1929 "Report
of Hot Water Committee," Proceedings of the National District
Heating Association 20:245-295 (June 1929)
Reports from hot water systems in Toledo; Peru, Indiana; Terre
Haute; Atlantic City; Evanston, Illinois; Oak Park; Indianapolis
1941 "A
Short History of the Steam Department: Indianapolis Power and
Light Company," Bulletin of the National District Heating
Association 26(4):160,175 (July 1941)
The first steam service was furnished through a four-inch line, about a
city block in length, from the power plant located in a barn in the rear
of the W. H. Spades residence on the Monument Circle, where the Columbia
Club now stands in the city’s center. This line was laid underground in
the alley, then through the basement of the building on the west side of
Pennsylvania Street and across Pennsylvania Street to the Grand Opera
House, which was located where Keith’s Theatre now stands and was the
first steam heating customer in Indianapolis, probably late in 1889.
1951 District
Heating Handbook, Third Edition, National District Heating
Association
Pages 20-21: The Indianapolis Power & Light Company supplies
high-pressure steam to part of the business center of Indianapolis and
nearby industrial areas.
It also supplies low-pressure steam to the downtown business area and to
an adjacent area to the north comprising primarily apartments, hotels and
residences. Approximately 55 per cent of the steam sold is delivered to
the high-pressure system and is used principally for industrial purposes.
The Company serves some of the largest known users of high pressure
district steam service, embracing such firms as Eli Lilly Company,
manufacturers of pharmaceuticals; Kingan and Company, meat packers; and E.
C. Atkins Company, saw manufacturers. Low-pressure customers include
Stokely Food Products Company, American Legion National Headquarters,
Indiana Mutual Insurance Company, and practically all downtown hotels and
office buildings.
Steam is delivered from three plants to the distribution system having
mains ranging in size from 30 in. to 4 in. All condensate is discharged to
sewers or dry wells.
In two of the three plants, electric-generating units are installed
through which some of the steam is passed before entering the
steam-distribution systems. Moreover, four high-pressure consumers
generate part of their electric requirements on their premises, using
extraction and high back pressure turbines to supply their process steam
and heating requirements.
The pressures in the two general high-pressure systems are 235 psi at 550
F and 175 psi at 500 F. The pressures in the low-pressure systems vary
from 30 to 50 psi. The latter systems are operated as a unit, being tied
together by two 12 in. lines and one 8 in. line. Dispatching is
accomplished by means of long-distance recording gages. Messages are
telephoned through the regular electric dispatcher’s office.
In the twelve-month period ending March 31, 1949, the Company delivered
2,047,068,000 lb of steam to the high-pressure system serving thirty
customers having a maximum demand of 549,000 lb per hr, and 1,654,061,000
lb of steam to the low-pressure system serving 1,147 customers with a
total of 3,015,943 sq ft of connected radiation. In addition, the Company
serves 119 water heating customers which use approximately 120,000,000 lb
of steam per year.
Pages 138-139: 1951 map of Indianapolis steam system
1954 Electrifying
Indianapolis, 1881-1954: A History of Indianapolis Power &
Light Company and Its Predecessors
This excellent book includes many references to steam and hot water
district heating.
1985 Marmon
heritage : more than 125 years of American production of world
renowned products : Marmon, Marmon-Herrington, Marmon-Herrington
all-wheel-drive Ford
Page 20: The following year [1889] Marmon-Perry constructed the
city’s first central station for incandescent lighting and steam heating.
At the rear of 121 Monument Circle, two Atlas boilers, a Mcintosh &
Seymour engine and two Thomson-Houston (former Jenney) 35 kilowatt, 110
volt generators were installed. Underground service to the Grand Opera
House was accomplished by running the cable in vitrified tiles and routing
the four inch steam pipe along side through the basements of buildings and
under streets.
Page 21: The Marion County (IN) Hot Water Heating Co. was
incorporated on June 7, 1902; D.W. Marmon and C.C. Perry were directors.
The charter included electric power generation and the first
turbo-generators in Indianapolis were installed in the Mill Street station
of the new company — two 2500 kilowatt Curtiss units procured from General
Electric Co.
In 1905 Marion County Hot Water Heating Co. was merged into Indianapolis
Power & Light. The name was changed to Indianapolis Light & Heat
Co., with capitalization of $1 million in common stock and $5 million in
first mortgage bonds. The officers were: Daniel W. Marmon, president;
Charles C. Perry, vice-president and treasurer, and Thomas A. Wynne,
secretary (originally with Jenney Electric) .
1995 "Cogeneration, District Heating and District Cooling: A Century of District Energy in Indianapolis," by Morris A. Pierce, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International District Energy Association 86:1-17 (June 1995)
2000 Citizens Energy acquires IPALCO's steam system, March 2000
1991 "Mid-America Starts a Winning Tradition," District Heating and Cooling 77(1):4-14 (Third Quarter 1991)
2022 "Indianapolis
might be a template for cities around the world," District
Energy (Spring-Summer 2022)
Includes A brief history of district energy in Indianapolis
© 2026 Morris A. Pierce