Heating & Cooling 20,000 State Workers

Bill Carmody | L&H Airco

August, 24 2009

Sacramento, CA  -  State officials and local construction workers gathered at the corner of Q and 7^th streets to celebrate the opening of the new Central Plant that heats and cools the Capitol and 22 State office buildings.  Each day, the plant provides steam and chilled water to more than 5.5 million square feet of office space in State-owned buildings throughout the Downtown core.

The Central Plant includes a 4.2 million gallon thermal energy storage water tank (TES) that will be used to shave the peak electrical operating costs of the plant during the cooling season.

The 78,000 square foot plant will use 90% less water that the original plant because of the progressive "green" design.  It will help the State reduce energy costs, cut water usage, and provide better reliability to the State buildings.

The state-of-the-art plant was built in less than 2 years and employed over 300 local construction workers, which added over 3.5 million dollars a month in payroll to the economy of Sacramento.  Zero accidents occurred during the approximately 575,000 man hours of construction.

The plant has 7 chillers running 4160 vac power, 4 large 250 psi steam boilers, a steam turbine generator, and partitioning valves so the TES can be charged while the plant provides chilled water to the buildings.

L&H Airco provided and built the cooling tower that sits atop the building.  It consists of eight cells and has the capacity to pump 55,000 gpm through the cooling tower for heat rejection of the chiller plant.  L&H Airco designed and installed the Alerton control system that has over 50,000 hardwired and networked points.

L&H Airco was a member of the design build team that included Skanska USA, the general contractor, Nacht & Lewis Architects, Flack + Kurtz mechanical and electrical engineers, Lawson Mechanical Contractors, and Redwood City Electric.  These key players were able to design, build, install, and commission a 16,300 ton cooling central plant in 18 months.