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Thomas Jefferson University Hospital

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The challenge

With a $24 million capital cost, Veolia designed, financed and built a central chilled water plant at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals and Thomas Jefferson University. Under a 30-year agree­ment, Veolia owns, operates and maintains the plant to meet the institution’s campus chilled water demand.
 
Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals and Thomas Jefferson University, a 925-bed hospital and teaching university, are partners in providing excellent clinical and compassionate care for patients in the Philadelphia region.

The project challenges are:

  • As the institution sought to grow and renew its utility infrastructure, it also required a financing solution to advance the capital improvements.
  • Due to Veolia’s presence in Philadelphia and its reputation as a reliable and effective thermal energy provider through the city’s steam grid, provision of chilled water from Veolia was a natural fit.
  • With Veolia’s financing, engineering and project development support, the institution developed a new central chilled water plant without the upfront capital expense that would have been incurred from self-development.

Veolia’s solution

Impressive resources:

  • Veolia owns, operates and maintains the central chilled-water plant consisting of cooling towers, chilled water and condensing water pumps, electric switchgear, emergency generator and 2,750 lineal feet of chilled-water pipe.
  • With 7,000 tons of chilled water production capacity, the plant serves six buildings consisting of 1.7 million square feet of hospital, university and research space via a new underground distribution system.
  • The engineering design included four electric centrifugal chillers with dual compressors and variable frequency drives on each chiller and a custom composite cooling tower.

Benefits for our client

Dedicated partnership:

  • Veolia fully built the central chilled water system and continues to provide reliability and quality chilled water service to the University and Hospital under a 30-year term.
  • Veolia’s long-term partnership with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital enables the institution to focus on its research efforts and providing quality clinical care to its patients.