Central Energy Facility Chiller Plant Expansion

Since the Central Energy Facility (CEF) was completed and became operational in March 2015, it has been providing chilled and hot water, and power to the entire campus community. However, over the past five years Stanford has experienced several record-setting heat waves that caused the campus load to exceed the CEF’s chilled water production capacity. Due to these events, chilled water was curtailed to campus buildings, which impacted the Stanford research community and building operations as well. 

The primary goal of the CEF Chiller Plant Expansion project is to increase chilled water capacity to align with the university’s new policy of zero curtailment days and to meet future campus growth. To achieve this goal, four three-thousand-ton chillers providing a total additional capacity of nine-thousand tons and one additional chiller for redundancy are currently being installed. The Chiller Plant Expansion project is being constructed within the fenced confines of the existing CEF service yard on the west side of campus.