The Stuart C. Siegel Center at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), located in Richmond, Virginia, is mostly known for its sold-out men’s basketball games, but it also hosts several other events and activities. From an air conditioning perspective, the basketball games do not account for the highest peak cooling load of the year for the 7,637-seat arena.
Every June, the Siegel Center fills with students, family members, and staff for roughly 35 high school graduations that are held back to back over an 11-day period, putting a constant, high cooling load on the building during the peak summer month. The facility was originally constructed with an ice storage system, which was sized to provide cooling to one basketball game each day. While an ice plant offers an opportunity for end users to utilize lower demand charges by creating ice during off-peak hours, it falls short when trying to maintain a constant high-demand load. At graduation time, the ice system could provide cooling to the first graduation ceremony of the day but was depleted by the second and third graduations, causing the facility to experience a rise in indoor temperature and humidity.