The New State Office Building at Butterfield Way adds three new structures to an existing Campus. The two existing campus buildings are known as \'Building 1\' and \'Building 2\'. When the new Master Plan was developed, power, heating, and cooling loads were studied for the campus as a whole. Both distributed and localized services were researched, it was ultimately decided that a Central Plant would be the most efficient way to meet the needs of the campus. Three options were evaluated on the selection of the chillers for the new Central Plant. First the design team looked at replacing the existing equipment with all new CFC free equipment to serve both the new and existing buildings. The drawback of this plan is that the existing \'Building 2\' chillers still have 15+ years of useful life. Relocating these existing chillers would not only save money but also the raw material needed for new chillers. The second idea was to replace the majority of the existing equipment with new CFC free equipment, relocate the \'Building 2\' chillers to the new Central Plant and change out the CFC\'s. This idea presented challenges as well. Changing out the refrigerant would result in less efficient chiller operations (ultimately resulting in higher energy demands in comparison with the CFC based refrigerant), higher maintenance costs over the remaining life of the chillers, and higher capital costs. The third idea was to bring in new CFC free chillers to serve the majority of the campus need and relocate the \'Building 2\' chillers with the R-11 refrigerant to the new Central Plant to provide back up capacity during peak loads. This option is supported by many positive points and was found to be the most economical choice for the project. In comparison with the first idea, relocating the existing \'Building 2\' chillers saves the cost, both in raw material and dollars, of additional new chillers. In comparison with the second idea, keeping the CFC based refrigerant will save energy and maintenance costs over the remaining useful life of the chillers. Keeping the existing chillers will also allow us to incorporate more VFD\'s, which will result in more efficient pumping and less energy use. The existing chillers have been and will continue to be well maintained and serviced. The money saved has gone toward sunshades and energy recovery systems (heat recovered from the chillers will be used to preheat domestic hot water). Any additional CFC based refrigerant needed for the existing system will come from the supply recovered from the \'Building 1\' chillers that were decommissioned. Option 3 stands out as the best option for many reasons, but it puts our LEED certification at risk. The Energy and Atmosphere Prerequisite 3 calls for "Zero use of CFC based refrigerants in new base building HVAC&R systems. When reusing existing base building HVAC equipment, complete a comprehensive CFC phase out conversion." In 10 years time, the next phase of the Master Plan calls for additional buildings and the phase out of the \'Building 2\' chillers, thus eliminating all CFC based refrigerants on campus. While this deviates from the phase out plan noted in the reference guide (change out prior to project completion), it is the plan the design team feels is the best option for the project and the environment and we trust you will agree.
The project is requesting an extension of the 1-year CFC phase-out requirement for a campus central plant. New buildings are being added to an existing campus, which will result in the creation of a new central plant. The project is proposing to relocate the R-11 chillers serving one of the existing buildings and add new CFC-free chillers to make up the campus central plant. The Master Plan calls for eliminating the R-11 chillers in 10 years. The project also stated that the new chillers will "serve the majority of the campus need", and the R-11 chillers will "provide back up capacity during peak loads". Previous CIRs have granted phase-out extensions of 5 and 7 years for campus situations where the CFC chillers accounted for less than 5% of the overall central plant load or where the project negotiated a long-term phase-out contract with extraordinary environmental benefit. In order to demonstrate compliance with this prerequisite, the project must provide the following: 1) Summary of new and existing buildings on campus and the cooling load of each building 2) Sizes for each of the new and existing chillers 3) Description of chiller staging to demonstrate use of CFC-free chillers as backup 4) Letter of commitment from the owner, describing the phase-out plan and timeframe.