NAPA VALLEY COLLEGE CENTRAL CHILLER PLANT

Napa, CA

 

This new facility produces the chilled water utilized for cooling all of the buildings at the College’s main campus in Napa. Combined with the recently upgraded Central Boiler Plant, and the new 1 megawatt Solar PV array, the campus now owns a very energy-efficient central infrastructure system to support the existing and future buildings.

Utilizing an ice-storage system, the chillers produce the ice during off-peak hours. The sloped site presented many challenges. The solution was a two story building set into the hillside, with the ice storage tanks at the lower level, and the chillers, cooling tower and pumps at the upper level. Both levels are provided with at-grade vehicular access. Extensive acoustical treatment was incorporated to mitigate noise impacts to adjacent classroom buildings.

The building utilizes curved metal roofs to blend with the hillside topography, and perforated corrugated metal panels to screen the roof-mounted cooling towers.