Rutgers Athletic Center

Overview
The Rutgers Athletic Center in Newark, NJ is an 8000 seat College arena spanning approx. 3,520 square feet. Rutgers is primarily known for being one of the top 10 universities for men’s basketball. The Athletic Center also hosts women’s basketball, wrestling, gymnastics, and various other events such as the Rutgers University Dance Marathon, raising funds for the Embrace Kids Foundation. In 2015 Rutgers was challenged by Governor Chris Christie to come up with a better means to provide cooling to the facility in order to continue to attract top sports talent to the school. At the time, they were currently using rental chillers and generators.

The goal of this project was to meet the customer’s cooling needs by delivering on the Trane promise of low flow and low temp within the limited funding available for this project. This project used an innovative and comprehensive approach to implement new systems and technology providing long term facility benefits and energy conservation.

Details
The building’s electrical infrastructure proved challenging, making most potential options for cooling expensive from an operational standpoint. Trane implemented an Ice Storage plant which provided a more permanent option of cooling. It also allowed for the ability to utilize a smaller pipe size which kept costs down. Demand and consumption charges were reduced by making ice at night.

Trane Air Cooled Ice Earth Wise System (with the Trane Creative Solutions Completion model)

Calmac Tanks (15)

RTAC Chillers (2) and associated pumps

Tracer FC Controls: Used to monitor ice plant and HVAC system