Recently, the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC), the major convention center facility in the Orlando area, was in the process of planning to double in size, to become the largest such facility in North America. The expansion plans involved a new and expensive 10,000-ton chiller plant to serve the expanding air conditioning requirements. The Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) - already involved in DC utility developments - conceived, developed, and executed a technically and commercially innovative DC project together with its partners and consultants. The selected approach incorporated TES in a manner that created and captured value for all the project participants.
By choosing to "outsource" its supply of chilled water from the local DC utility, the convention center (and the other chilled water customers of the new DC system) avoided the need to invest capital in its own chiller plants. Existing chiller plants were acquired by the DC system developer and operated in an integrated manner with a new TES system to provide the necessary peak cooling load and redundant back-up capacities efficiently. As a result, customers are able to focus their capital (as well as their efforts and energies) on their core business, leaving chilled water generation responsibilities to the DC utility.