District Cooling St. Paul, a District Energy affiliate, currently provides air-conditioning service to more than 80 downtown St. Paul buildings, representing 17 million square feet of building space. Buildings connected to a district cooling system do not need chillers or cooling towers, eliminating the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerants. Chilled water is produced at our central plant and piped underground to buildings in the downtown business district. Once used in customer buildings, the water is returned to the central plant to be rechilled and then recirculated through the closed-loop piping system.
A 2.5-million-gallon chilled water storage tank was constructed in 1994 to store chilled water produced at night, using off-peak electricity, for daytime distribution to downtown St. Paul district cooling customers. The use of chilled water storage reduces regional peak electric demands, improves air quality, provides greater rate stability, increases cooling capacity and provides a high overall system reliability. A second chilled water storage tank, which holds 4 million gallons of water, began operating in Spring 2003 at a new district cooling plant located in the northeast section of downtown Saint Paul.
New District Cooling Plant Wins Award
Fact Sheet for District Cooling