District Energy Central Plant
Chillers, thermal storage and boilers serving a downtown district, cut over to occupied buildings one loop at a time with no loss of heat or cooling.
- Owner
- Confidential
- Location
- U.S.
- Market
- Energy Infrastructure
- Delivery
- Design-build
- Scale
- 24,000 tons cooling
- Completed
- 2023
A central plant of chillers, thermal storage and boilers serving a downtown district, cut over to live buildings one loop at a time with no loss of heat or cooling.
The district’s old steam and chilled water plant was failing, and dozens of buildings depended on it, including offices, a hotel and a hospital wing. The new plant had to be built nearby, connected to existing distribution piping under busy streets, and switched over in winter and summer windows without any building losing heat or cooling for even an hour.
The approach.
- 01
Thermal storage as a buffer
A chilled water storage tank was built first, giving operators a reserve to carry buildings through each cutover.
- 02
Street work at night
New distribution piping went in from night work zones, with steel plates over the trenches for daytime traffic.
- 03
Loop-by-loop cutover
Buildings moved to the new plant one loop at a time, each with a tested fallback to the old plant.
- 04
Operators trained on their plant
Plant operators ran the new equipment alongside our startup team for a full season before taking over.
The outcome.
“A hospital wing does not care that we are changing plants. So we made sure it never noticed.”
Startup manager, PerryWester
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