Weber State University
Trane provides energy-saving chiller plant • Ogden, Utah
Founded in 1889, Weber State University
includes 37 academic buildings. WSU is
becoming more environmentally friendly,
promoting mass transit, bicycling and car
pooling. WSU has very aggressive recycling and
renewable energy programs and has committed
more than $7 million towards campus energy
efficiency projects to be completed in the next
three years. In addition to Trane cooling
upgrades, boiler upgrades are saving about
7,300 decatherms of natural gas per year.
Lighting upgrades are saving 823,000 kWh of
electricity--about 1.2 million pounds of carbon
dioxide not released into the atmosphere.
Project summary
Weber State University constructed a new chiller plant equipped with
Trane chillers to increase cooling capacity and efficiency and that is
expected to save the University more than $400,000 in energy costs
over the next twenty years.
Challenge
of the science building, which has a lot of
Tom VanCleave, Plant Operations Director at
delicate, precision instrumentation in it. The
Weber State University, said, “In the early 1970s
chiller water pumps were creating enough
we had two absorption chillers. Eventually we
vibration to create problems.”
ran out of cooling capacity as the campus grew.
Tom VanCleave, Weber
In 1988 we installed another 1250-ton
The existing 650- and 1250-ton Trane chillers
State University Facilities
centrifugal chiller and simply abandoned the
were moved from the science building basement
absorption chillers in place. In 1994 we installed
into the new chiller plant along with the new
a 650-ton Trane centrifugal chiller. By 2001 the
1500-ton Trane chillers. VanCleave added, “We
University added several more new buildings
had a very tight schedule for the project. We
and again we were out of cooling capacity. We
began work in November 2007 as the new
Systems installed
added another 1250-ton Trane centrifugal
chiller plant had to be operating by April 2008.”
• Weber State
University installed
high-efficiency
Trane CenTraVac™
chillers in its new
central cooling plant
chiller, also in the basement of the science
Director, checks on a
Trane chiller at WSU.
laboratory building. Then we added another new
Results
building and although the chiller plant could
The new chillers consume only .538 kW of
cover the maximum expected cooling load, we
electricity per ton of cooling capacity for an
had no redundancy. If any chillers went down,
expected $400,000 in energy savings over the
we could lose control of our campus cooling
next 20 years. The project is now pending
loop.”
USGBC LEED Silver certification. Tom VanCleave
said, “We participated in the Trane customer
Solution
witness test which verifies the performance of
To develop an efficient, cost-effective solution
each chiller at various load conditions to assure
VanCleave worked with local consulting
the customer that the chiller will provide the
engineers to study the campus and chilled water
specified chilled water temperature, flow rate
system operation, daily load profiles and
and efficiency. The Trane chillers have been
life-cycle costs. VanCleave said, “We decided to
absolutely trouble free and we’re exceeding the
build a new chiller plant so that we could
energy efficiency projections. We have a very
purchase two additional 1500-ton Trane chillers
aggressive maintenance program and we get
to give us needed backup capacity. We
excellent support from Trane.
considered proposals from Trane and two other
major chiller manufacturers. The Trane proposal
"The Trane chillers run so smoothly and quietly
was the best, by far, considering life-cycle costs.
that it is difficult to tell which chiller is running
Another reason for building the new chiller plant
when you walk into the chiller plant. Trane is
was to get the older chillers out of the basement
just super to work with. No matter what my
question, they’ll get me the right answer or get
me hooked up with the right people at Trane
who have the answer.”
© 2010 Trane All rights reserved
CASE-SLX212-EN July 16, 2010