Centennial Campus Chilled Water Plant and Thermal Energy Storage

North Carolina State University’s (NCSU) Centennial Campus is growing with new buildings and existing buildings being added to the district chilled water loop. This project design expanded central chilled water plant capacity with the addition of a stratified chilled water thermal energy storage tank (TES).

During advanced planning stages, options and comparative analysis were developed for each element of the design. The tank was sited to minimize grading and structural retaining walls while remaining accessible and relatively obscure from primary campus views. A 3.5M gallon welded steel tank was selected. The tank will store 25,000 ton-hrs of cooling at 12F temperature differential. The TES is controlled via a Honeywell HC900 Hybrid PLC system that operates on an Iconics graphics and SCADA package.