PROJECT

Central Plant Master Plan Implementation

We provided architectural, engineering, procurement and construction services to Thermal Energy Corp. (TECO) for the initial phase of a master plan implementation at its district energy plant at the Texas Medical Center.

When complete, the expansion of the central plant provided 100 MW of on-site power generation, 80,000 tons of chilled water, 152,000 ton-hours of chilled water storage and 540,000 pounds-per-hour of steam to 75 percent of the 47 institutions’ facilities at the Texas Medical Center.

This on-site combined heat and power (CHP) system doubled operating efficiency to 80 percent, significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved the security, reliability and emergency operation capacity of the utility infrastructure serving the world's largest medical center.

 

Client

Thermal Energy Corp.

Location

Houston, Texas

Region

Southwest

Services

Campus Energy

District Energy

Industrial Cogeneration

CHP/Cogeneration

Industries

Commercial, Retail & Institutional

Power

Case Study

A District Energy System Is Bigger in Texas

It takes the biggest district energy system in North America to deliver reliable, chilled water and steam to the world’s largest medical center. But w...

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Thermal Energy Storage

The project includes 8.8 million gallon thermal energy storage (TES) tank with 76,000 ton-hours of storage capacity, enough time to defer running electrical centrifugal chillers during pricier peak demand periods. In August 2011, the TES tank saved TECO more than $500,000 in energy costs while providing increased redundancy and reliability. As the tallest TES tank worldwide, it received the ASHRAE Technology Award and was honored by the Steel Tank Institute as its Steel Tank of the Year.

48-MW CHP Plant

Located on site at the Texas Medial Center, this highly efficient, natural gas-fired CHP system can generate 48 MW of power and 330,000 pounds of steam per hour. It can operate as a base load system to serve 100 percent of the plant's peak electrical load and TECO's customers' peak process and space heating loads. Exceeding 80 percent efficiency, this CHP system saves an estimated 0.75 trillion Btus annually over separate electrical and steam generation and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300,000 tons per year. It also enables TECO to provide uninterrupted energy services in a grid outage.

Startup and Commissioning

We managed the construction for phase one of this project. Startup and commissioning was particularly challenging, as the life-saving critical care and research that takes place at the medical center requires no outages. Our team extensively planned and coordinated phasing and timing of testing with TECO. With reliability being a top priority, the firm provided extensive, thorough training to plant operators.