The three-story, 63,000-square-foot project on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) will be a New Haven Public School (NHPS) for 490 Pre-K through 4th grade students. It will additionally extend opportunities for interning, volunteering and mentoring for SCSU’s School of Education students that are studying to become teachers. The Barack H. Obama Magnet University School will boost the bond between SCSU and NHPS, by nurturing a mutual focus on innovation and best practices for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, and special education.

Developed in a partnership between Pickard Chilton and Hartford, Conn.-based JCJ Architecture, the school’s architectural design creates an effective educational environment by providing all classrooms with access to natural light and scenic views, and all primary classrooms will have vibrant vistas of West Rock. The heart of the building is the Cafetorium and Gym, which can combine to form a larger space for entire school functions. This space has sightlines to the classroom corridor and to the outdoor play areas. The building will boast an open courtyard that aligns the adjacent woodlands in order to easily connect students with nature. Two wings around the courtyard contain the Media Center, Art, Music and Science Discovery Center.

Pickard Chilton incorporated into the school such sustainable highlights as photovoltaic rooftop panels and green roofs, and the plan complies with the NHPS High Performance Schools Design Requirements and the State of Connecticut High Performance Building standards.

“We are excited and proud to be a part of this project, the first in our hometown of New Haven,” said Pickard Chilton Principal Jon Pickard in a statement. “The Barack H. Obama Magnet University School will be first and foremost an education and innovation facility, and our design was developed with the needs of both the school’s students and SCSU’s teachers-in-training in mind.”

Pickard Chilton has extensive experience working on both public and institutional facilities, having designed projects such as the Minnesota State Senate Building, the Orville L. Freeman Building and the Emory University Hospital, among others.

The $45 million school is scheduled to open in fall 2019. It is believed to be the first school in New England named in honor of President Obama, and will replace Strong School’s Orchard Street location.

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The company recently released its case study of St. Lucie County School District, which previously had one of the highest energy costs per square foot of school districts in the state of Florida. Realizing a need for change, the school district implemented Calmac thermal energy storage technology to reduce their heavy energy bills.

“Our products run the chillers of a building at night when they’re usually doing nothing,” said Mark MacCracken, Calmac CEO. “We store the energy in the form of ice. During the day, we melt the ice in order to cool the building. So, you’ve shifted a major electric load from the on-peak period to the off-peak period. We’re decoupling when you create cooling from when you’re using the cooling.”

By using the company’s IceBank thermal energy storage, the school district saw a reduction of $5 million in utility costs over the past seven years. Overall, the company has completed hundreds of installations in schools throughout Florida and the nation. In a time where maintaining fiscal sustainability is critical, energy savings made with the thermal energy storage technology can help relieve the pressures of budget cuts, MacCracken said.

“There is a large savings in energy cost, which the administration sees, and they can then use these savings to hire another teacher or something of that nature,” he said. “It may improve the quality of education because you have a better student-teacher ratio.”

Many of the earlier myths surrounding thermal energy storage have now been dispelled, and commercial buildings are realizing the major cost savings in using off-peak energy.

“Thermal storage is not difficult, we’ve taken the complexity out of it. It’s a proven and reliable product that saves owners money and energy,” MacCracken said.

MacCracken likened the utilization of thermal energy storage in commercial buildings to throwing a barbecue at one’s home.

“If you’ve ever thrown a barbecue at your house and you have 20 people coming over, you would never think it’s a good idea to start making the ice cubes for the party when people start walking through the door,” he said. “Your refrigerator could never keep up with it.”

Though it is standard practice to instantly cool a building during on-peak periods, it is simply illogical to do so, MacCracken said. Using energy collected during off-peak periods is far cheaper for owners, he said.

“To air condition that same person at the barbecue in a commercial building, for each person you need the equivalent cooling of somewhere between 150 and 300 pounds of ice. And yet, in most buildings they start making the cooling instantaneously when people get there,” MacCracken said.

Additionally, the practice of thermal energy storage is much more environmentally friendly. Buildings must lessen their dependence on carbon-based fuels and opt for renewable energy to become better stewards to the environment, MacCracken said.

“Renewables are very important as we move forward to try to lessen our impact on the environment,” he said.

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The district earned the Central Florida ASHRAE Chapter Institutional Building Technology Award for its 450,000-square-foot campus, which features a “high school as a small town” design concept drafted by SchenkelShultz architectural firm. 

The facility features three academic neighborhoods, an administration and media civic center, athletic and dining facilities, and a performing arts town center clustered around a central landscaped courtyard.

Designers installed various energy-efficient technologies during the design phase of the campus, including hybrid cooling, solar domestic water heaters, low-flow water fixtures in all restrooms, and high-efficiency T-8 and T-5 internal lighting.

To take advantage of cooling load diversity and economies of scale, the high school and adjoining K-8 campus operate with a combined chilled water central energy plant from Calmac, a designer and manufacturer of thermal energy storage.

By building one central energy plant for both the high school and kindergarten through eighth grade school, the district realized a first cost savings of $400,000. In addition, by operating one plant instead of two, the tonnage diversity in the system causes a $48,000 energy cost savings per year, according to officials from Calmac.  

The cooling plant utilizes a hybrid cooling system made of Calmac IceBank energy storage tanks and chillers, which uses chillers to charge the IceBank at night to fill it with ice. The stored energy in the ice serves as thermal energy to augment the cooling system when cooling demands are high, helping to keep electric demand and cooling costs low.

The system acts similar to a hybrid car design, where the stored energy “picks up the slack” when more than average demands are required, according to officials from Calmac.

On a peak design day, the system’s air-cooled chillers cool up to 70 percent of the facility’s load and the energy storage cools the remaining load – a process known as partial energy storage.

The partial energy storage process allows downsized chillers to operate at or near full load continuously, which eliminates inefficient cycling and capacity modulation that comes with part-load operation and normally causes a chiller to operate at peak efficiency only 25 percent of the time.

The air-cooled chillers used at Weeki Wachee High School make for great “icemakers” because they take advantage of reduced dry bulb temperatures at night while making ice, according to company officials.

The combined campuses at Weeki Wachee require 2,040 total tons of cooling capacity.
Matern Professional Engineering, a Fla.-based service firm, combined two central cooling plants into one and added energy storage, reducing the purchased chiller capacity to 1,200 tons.  

In addition to reducing the HVAC equipment size and refrigerant required for the project, the hybrid cooling system added to classroom comfort by lowering humidity levels and reduced the peak energy consumption for the campus.

Ccalmac’s energy storage tanks are estimated to save 10 percent of the school’s annual electricity costs, company officials reported.

One of the main challenges was selecting equipment that would save energy while also reducing energy costs to provide a payback on investment for the community, officials said.

While the goal of the project was to achieve a 12 percent reduction in energy costs, the most recent energy calculations showed a 17.4 percent reduction and a cost savings of 20 percent, which includes 43 million British thermal units of on-site renewable energy from solar panels. The total water savings is 44.8 percent, Calmac officals report.

The school, which opened in August 2010, was able to extend its ability to melt more ice during the occupied mode than originally expected by optimizing the plant with the DDC control system. Energy modeling shows that the energy storage system is also saving 6 percent to 7 percent of energy, company officials said.

Dennis McGeehan, principal of Weeki Waachi High School, said the system has been operating smoothly.

“We’re very pleased with it at this point,” he said.

Key Players:
Mark Johnson, Regional Sales Manager
CALMAC

Ryan Strandquest, LEED AP, Project Manager
Matern Professional Engineering, Inc.

Kevin Bjorgum, PE, Mechanical Engineer of Record

Marc Sherman, EI, LEED AP, Mechanical Engineer and LEED Representative

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