Honeywell declared that it has entered into an accord with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to assist in upholding the progress of its on-site utilities and energy infrastructure at the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) located at the White Oak Federal Research Center in Silver Spring, Md.
This happens to be the fifth major maintenance accord for the company at the White Oak campus. The 20 year accord will receive its funding from the functional savings and downstream energy achieved by the work. Honeywell has assured the savings without escalating the budget set for operational costs.
Most important feature of the project is the building of a centralized utility plant to support the cooling, heating and power supply needs of the FDA's Center for Biological Evaluation and Research’s expansion measuring around 1.2-million square-feet. Honeywell will integrate the currently existent plant at White Oak and the new plant into a single unit to fortify the energy security and remove its dependence on conventional power grid supply.
The new plant will have a 4.5 MW natural gas turbine generator, two 7.5 MW dual-fuel turbine generators, a 5 MW steam turbine generator and two 2.25 MW diesel standby generators. The plant will also incorporate a 2-million gallon thermal energy storage tank and three 2,500-ton chillers to sustain the needs of the campus during a temporary cut in the municipal water supply. The plant is designed to generate around 250,000 MW of electricity per year, which can meet the power requirements of over 23,000 houses. Under the signed accord, the company will also improve the present lighting systems at the parking garages by installing occupancy sensors and light-emitting diode fittings.
The project is anticipated to conserve around 48 million kWh of electricity per year, which can be equated to reducing around 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide release every year or removing of around 4,600 cars from plying on the road. The new project is anticipated to get completed in the last part of 2013 and the company will commence its maintenance services when the central plant at the research center becomes operational in 2014.
Source: http://honeywell.com/