When AdventHealth sought to expand its Orlando-campus central energy plant, known as their energy office building (EOB), by 17,400 gross square feet and decommission a separate central energy plant, leadership chose Hanson to provide commissioning services. Hanson’s work spanned from the design, construction, and post-occupancy phases and including heating, ventilating and air-conditioning; building automation; emergency electrical power generation; and transfer switch systems.
The project included pre-construction and construction monitoring of remote loop systems, utility rerouting and temporary operational modifications, retro-commissioning, commissioning of new EOB expansion systems and integration into existing systems and post-construction commissioning.
The existing building included:
- four 2,000-ton chillers
- two 800-brake horsepower (BHP) boilers
- four 2,000-ton cooling towers (ground based)
- chilled water pumps
- normal and emergency switchgear
- six generator sets (plus two slots for future expansion)
The equipment decommissioned or demolished included:
- four 1,280-ton chillers
- two 600-bhp steam boilers
- ground-based cooling towers
New equipment added consisted of:
- one 2,000-ton chiller
- one 899-BHP steam boiler
- one 2,000-ton rooftop cooling tower
- CW pumps normal and emergency switchgear
With the planned modifications, Hanson documented the existing sequences and control strategies with the engineer of record, controls contractor and Hanson’s commissioning authority before modifiing or enhancing the control via retro-commissioning. Functional testing covered all operating modes, including the existing chillers operating with the new cooling towers, and the new chillers operating with the existing cooling towers. Because the existing and new towers used different cooling technologies, the condenser water loops could not operate as a single system. Hanson also developed a systems manual.
