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Iowa State University, located in Ames, Iowa, is one of the nation's leading land-grant universities. Iowa State University began using combined heat and power systems to serve the energy needs of the campus in 1891. The current Iowa State University Power Plant is a combined heat and power facility with adequate capacity to fully serve all the energy needs of the campus. The plant can produce up to 46 megawatts of electricity, 900,000 pounds of steam per hour, and 21,000 tons of chilled water to reliably meet the campus energy needs.

The Iowa State University Power Plant utilizes coal as its fuel source. The coal is burned to produce high pressure steam in five coal-fired boilers, including two circulating fluidized bed boilers, two spreader stroker boilers, and one chain grate stroker boiler. Electricity is produced with four automatic-extraction condensing steam turbine generators and lower pressure steam is extracted for heating and cooling. The combined heat and power process produces 100 percent of the campus heating, over 80 percent of the campus cooling, and 20 percent of the campus electrical needs.