District Cooling System/Plant

I started by Googling "district cooling." About a dozen suggestions dropped down into the submenu, where you can find lots about systems, plants, design, and a few city examples.

When steam, hot water or chilled water arrive at a customer's building, they are ready to use. They are 100 percent efficient "at the door," compared with 80 percent efficient or less when burning natural gas or fuel oil at a building. In addition, district energy systems can use the "reject heat" that results from burning fuel to produce electricity at a power plant, dramatically increasing the overall efficiency with which useful energy is extracted from the fuel.

When the reject heat is used, the system becomes a combined heat and power system (often referred to by the acronym "CHP")- generating both heating and cooling plus electricity for customers. A CHP system may have nearly double the fuel efficiency of an electric generation plant and can also lower the emissions typically associated with conventional fossil-fuel powered electrical production. The less energy used, the less sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide and other emissions are expelled into the environment.

The beauty of a district energy system is that since it serves so many customers from a central plant, it can accomplish things individual buildings usually cannot. For instance, district energy systems can use a variety of conventional fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, whichever fuel is most competitive at the time. And because of a district energy system's size, the district energy plant can also transition to use renewable fuels such as various forms of biomass such as wood and food processing waste, geothermal heat, and combined heat and power.

Customers do not need boilers or chillers, so there is less maintenance, monitoring and equipment permitting. And that allows occupants, rather than energy operations, to be the focus. District energy customers don't need fuel deliveries, handling and storage so there are fewer safety and liability concerns for employees and building occupants. The use of district energy service frees up building space by eliminating the need for mechanical rooms, freeing up space to meet tenant needs

District energy systems are run by energy professionals who operate around-the-clock and have backup systems readily available. Historically, most district energy systems operate at a reliability of "five nines" (99.999 percent).

Good resource for more info and many case studies is International District Energy Association: http://www.districtenergy.org .

thanks so much..

Nicely said, and an excellent summary. In addition, larger scale facilities like this are likely to offer better opportunities for cogeneration (waste heat recovery). In addition to some cities, I suspect there are quite a few universities and other institutional occupancies that make good use of this approach. Large geothermal installations (such as in Iceland) would be another example. Your mention of "five nines" lines up well with the OP's interests, too.

Your guess is right on target. Many colleges and universities and other types of campuses in North America and around the world have district energy systems: Here's a partial list: