Hydronic News Magazine

Kyocera America International
Cogeneration Plant
Project Location: San Diego, CA
Mechanical Contractor: West Coast AC
Engineering Firm: PID Engineering
by John Sieger, San Diego Branch Manager

When Kyocera re-powered their existing 3.2 megawatt Cogeneration plant they turned to the experts in this field.

PID Engineering provided mechanical, electrical, structural and architectural design services, and West Coast Air Conditioning was brought in to complete the extremely complex installation.

The new plant will employ two Caterpillar
reciprocating generator sets to produce a gross 3.6 megawatts for use at Kyocera’s facility. Waste heat from the gen-sets will be used to produce 960 tons of chilled water in new hot water absorption chillers.

In addition to the gen-sets and absorption chillers, numerous pumps, heat exchangers, expansion tanks, and air separators were required for the system. For this equipment Bell & Gossett products were selected and installed for their high operating efficiencies, high quality, low maintenance, and ease of maintenance resulting in a high return on investment, and low life cycle costs. Eight B&G 1510 series base mounted pumps were used for condenser water, chilled water and heating water.

These pumps ranged in size from 955 GPM to 2150 GPM. For the heat transfer side of the plant, two B&G GPX, plate and frame heat exchangers were used as well as two type WU, 10” shell & tube heat exchangers and one 24” OFT, straight tube heat exchangers. Rounding out the system were 6 Rolairtrol air separators from 3” to 10” in size, and 6 B-Series expansion tanks from 10 gallons to 106 gallons.

PID Engineering (Power and Industrial Design Corporation) specializes in providing mechanical and electrical engineering design services for power and industrial clients. West Coast Air Conditioning is a family run business that has been contracting in California since 1962. They will be celebrating their 50th Anniversary on November 8th, 2012. Their projects include powered co-generation plants, hospitals, schools and laboratories.

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