All-Electric Heating and Cooling
Ever-Green is operating and maintaining Google’s Moffett Park Thermal Plant in Sunnyvale, California. The plant is all-electric and operates like a big thermal battery, which increases the amount of time they are able to use carbon-free forms of energy to cool and heat nearby Google buildings.
Modern Technology and Load Shifting
The thermal plant’s unique design and operating procedures optimize the thermal storage tanks to load shift energy production to the time of day when the grid provides the most carbon-free energy. In California, this tends to be in the middle of the day when electricity produced from solar is at its highest. The thermal storage tanks bank low-carbon energy as chilled and hot water, then discharge it during peak demand, separating when energy is produced from when it is consumed. This differs from other thermal storage systems, which shift production to overnight hours. The load-shifting based on carbon intensity, allows the cooling and heating delivered by the plant to be optimized for a much lower carbon impact than would be possible if energy were supplied “on demand” when connected buildings need it.
The system produces chilled water and low-temperature hot water utilizing heat recovery chillers, air-source heat pumps with backup electric hot water boilers, conventional chillers, and cooling towers. Heat-recovery chillers produce chilled water and hot water at the same time, capturing heat pulled from spaces that need cooling and redirecting it to spaces that need heating. Heat that a conventional plant would otherwise reject becomes a usable energy resource. The operation features three chilled water and one hot water thermal storage tanks. The plant is adaptable and designed to be able to reach more buildings in the future as needed.
Ever-Green’s Role
With decades of experience in energy system planning, start up, and operations, our team began consulting on this operation in 2022 to assess the Plant’s operational readiness, guide longer term asset planning, and advise on energy business processes. We supported Google to get the thermal plant and building mechanical systems online and outline best practices for the life cycle of the plant. Ever-Green advisory services included:
- Business governance structure and processes
- Regulatory reporting and compliance
- Thermal asset management, preventative maintenance, and standard operating procedures
- Plant controls optimization, including real-time equipment staging and storage dispatch
- Risk assessment and mitigation
- Talent recruitment, training, and management
- Environmental, health, and safety
- Emergency preparedness
- Customer and stakeholder management, communications, and engagement
- Instrumentation, controls, and data management
- Long-term strategic planning
