Approximately 1995, ROI was brought in to assist a large, private University in Southern California in developing an energy and infrastructure master plan.  Over 94% of the buildings on campus were served by dedicated chillers, chilled water pumps and cooling towers, or had packaged air cooled equipment to provide HVAC services.

The University management realized that much of their HVAC system infrastructure would need to be replaced within a few years, as equipment failures had become more commonplace, and more catastrophic.  Chillers and cooling towers that are 30 to 40 years old are past their useful lives, and are basically energy hogs.

ROI worked with the University Engineering staff, and assisted in evaluating several potential firms to act as the General Contractor for the energy infrastructure and energy procurement projects.  Enron Corporation was eventually selected over some very stiff competition.

Enron was retained to implement a new chiller plant and piping infrastructure system to connect to  another chiller plant that had been designed previously by ROI, and installed in one corner of the campus.

Enron was given the design package developed by ROI and the University, and retained subcontractors to implement the project.  ROI was retained by Enron to commission the project to meet the goals and objectives set forth by the University.  Over the last few months of 2000, the chiller plant (chillers, pumps, cooling towers)  operated between approximately 0.50 kW per ton and 0.55 kW per ton, but in recent months, we have been able to obtain overall system performance of between 0.42 and 0.48 kW per ton.  After the commissioning and training efforts are finalized, the system should be capable of operating at below 0.40 kW per ton during the winter. 

This compares to system efficiencies of 1.1 to 2.3 kW per ton for the systems that have been replaced by the new plant.

ROI is continuing our work for the University at the Health Sciences Campus, located approximately 13 miles from the main campus. At the request of the University, Enron has retained ROI to design two new chiller plants at the Health Sciences Campus, one 2725 ton plant and one 700 ton plant. These plants should be capable of year round average kW per ton efficiencies of 0.50 kW per ton (large plant) to 0.55 per ton (smaller plant). The smaller plant has space restrictions that keep ROI from using the most efficient equipment possible.

Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital | Naval Medical Center
University Of California  (UCSD) | A Southern California University