Downtown Denver District Cooling System

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Downtown Denver District Cooling System

Xcel Energy (previously know as Public Service Company of Colorado) selected FVB Energy Inc. to help them expand their district heating business into district cooling. We provided a variety of business development, marketing and engineering services including preparation of the owner’s requirement documents (ORD) that Xcel Energy used to solicit design build bids for the first 8,000 ton phase that is now operating successfully. And since the facility is designed to have 20,000 tons production capacity, Xcel Energy can expand production as the customer base grows. In addition to the production capacity, this project also has ice thermal storage capability—37,500 ton-hrs initially; 75,000 ton-hrs utilmately. Water is distributed at 35°F through the initial 4,500 feet of welded, steel pipe that is up to 24” in diameter. Customers receive the water through plate heat exchangers that separate the customers’ systems from the district system.

Technologies
• District cooling. The plant will have an ultimate capacity of 20,000 tons including thermal energy storage. The plant combines large packaged electric centrifugal chillers with dual-duty, industrial grade screw chillers capable of producing chilled water for the district system or ice for the thermal energy storage system.
• Ice thermal energy storage. Peak power demand load shifting is provided with ice-on-coil thermal storage. Ultimately the plant will have 75,000 ton-hrs thermal storage.
Customers
FVB Energy provided many types of services to make this project successful, including:
• Market assessment and feasibility analysis
• Conceptual design of the cooling system
• Marketing and sales guidance and support
• Financial analysis and rate structure development
• Hydraulic modeling and thermal storage analysis
• Development of owner’s requirements documents providing detailed requirements for the plant, piping and end-user systems