“Nobody’s ever had a crystal ball. A series of decentralized chilled water systems was in fact a pretty reasonable approach to campus expansion in the 1970s. But in terms of efficiency, maintenance, and reliability today, it turns out to have been a short view.”
Dave, LEED® AP
AEI Project Manager
Campus-Wide Chilled Water System Upgrade Prudent then, not sustainable now. Over the course of 10 years, the UIUC campus has been systematically transformed from independent building cooling systems that utilized aging, low-pressure absorption chillers, to a robust 40,000-ton centralized system that utilizes efficient steam turbine and electric chillers and fully integrates with the campus combined heat and power plant. In so doing, steam consumption for chilled water was reduced by over 50%. This approach greatly reduced operating costs while providing the university with greater reliability, flexibility, and easier maintenance. The new system was carefully planned and sized to ultimately serve over 150 existing campus buildings, and was coordinated, staged, and installed with minimal disruption to day-to-day activities in a large university campus environment.
Services: Mechanical, Electrical, Piping/Plumbing, Instrumentation and Controls, Construction Field Services
Size: 40,000 tons; 5 miles of chilled water distribution piping
Location: Urbana-Champaign, IL
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