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McCormick Place Exhibition and Convention Center
The Challenge
 In 1992, The Chicago Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA), overseeing the McCormick Place Exhibition and Convention Center, was planning a 2.2 million square foot expansion to the 2.8 million square foot complex. Faced with a $27 million capital investment in new heating and cooling facilities, the MPEA decided to outsource the operations of the existing energy plant, and their future energy needs for the growing facility.
Project Description
Trigen-Peoples' approach integrated the operation of the existing heating and cooling equipment with a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system and three Trigeneration (combined heating, cooling and power) systems. The TES system, the largest chilled water storage tank in North America, (8.5 million gallons) stores cold water at produced at night and discharges it to meet daylight peak cooling loads. The three Trigeneration systems combine a gas turbine, a motor/generator, a heat recovery steam generator and an ammonia screw compressor chiller.
Benefits
The cost savings to the MPEA came in two forms. Operational savings of $1 million per year are projected over the life of the project. By allowing the Trigen-Peoples partnership to take ownership of the facility, the MPEA also avoided a $27 million up front capital outlay.
The efficiency improvements of the integrated facility resulted in substantial environmental benefits from the McCormick Place project. By using the same fuel twice to produce electricity and other energy products and maximizing the use of all the possible energy from the fuel, the facility is able to achieve fuel conversion efficiencies of 91%. As such emissions of CO2 are reduced annually by 24,327 tons and NOx by 59 tons (twice the expected annual emissions from the facility) when compared to the production of these same products separately, by conventional means.
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