Encon annually delivers hundreds of projects for our clients. We welcome the opportunity to partner with you on your next project.
The following is a sample of recent mission critical projects. Please contact us today for more information about these or other projects.
Global Crossing
New York
Encon is currently providing conceptual planning and detailed engineering design for the mechanical systems upgrade of a 45,000 square foot telecommunications facility in New York.
The existing mechanical system is comprised of 22 nominal 20-ton direct expansion (DX) air conditioning units, each connected to a nominal 20 ton “piggy-back” air cooled condenser. The condensers are located within a mechanical equipment room at an exterior wall. The DX systems are operating at reduced output cooling capacities as a result of excessive refrigerant piping lengths and minimal external static capacities of the condensers. The total installed nominal cooling capacity of 440 tons (1.55 MW) struggles to maintain required space temperatures with only 200 tons (703 kW) of actual technical equipment cooling load.
Encon’s design solution begins with converting 22 DX air conditioning units to glycol based water cooled unit by installing heat exchangers. Then the existing air cooled condensers will be removed and replaced with custom dry coolers, built in place with primary and secondary coils, variable speed fan walls and two inch thick double wall insulated containment boxes. All refrigerant piping will be removed and replaced with a glycol distribution piping system and triplex pumping station. Up to five custom dry coolers can be installed, allowing the total installed cooling capacity to be increased to 625 tons (2.2 MW), which allows for future site technical expansion.
Operating efficiencies of the new mechanical system will be greatly increased, reducing support equipment electrical demand and allowing for the installation of additional technical loads.
All project work will be phased to allow for continuous site operations, with no network traffic outages.
The unique situation involving this project was designing a custom built glycol based cooling System that had to constructed in place due to limited access points and extreme space limitations.
Windstream Hosted Solutions
Charlotte
Encon, as the prime design professional, provided MEP, fire protection, structural, and architectural design services for this design-build project. The project required the renovation of a 10,000 square foot data center to provide for 150 watts per square foot of technical load.
The new data center has a 36 inch raised floor utilizing down-flow cooling air handing units. Two nominal 350 ton air cooled chillers located on the roof with supporting pumps and controls (in a 2N configuration) deliver chilled water to the air handling units.
Electrical design scope included a 2500 kVA utility transformer provided by the building owner to serve a 3000 amp main service switchboard.
Normal power for the critical plant and the mechanical systems distribution are served by the main service switchboard. The critical plant consists of four 550 kVA/495 kW static UPS modules paralleled in a 2N arrangement. The UPS outputs are connected to UPS paralleling switchboards with an integral static switch and maintenance bypass. The distribution to the data center floor branch circuits is via 10-300 kVA power distribution units.
Stand-by power consists of one rooftop-mounted 2.25 MW diesel driven engine generator with a fuel oil transfer system supplied by an underground storage tank. The engine generator serves a 3000 amp distribution switchgear with draw-out type circuit breakers that feed redundant distribution switchboards through automatic transfer switches with bypass isolation switches. Also included in the generator distribution switchgear is a circuit breaker for an emergency roll-up generator or temporary load bank.
The fire protection and suppression system for the data center and power room space is a double-interlocked pre-action sprinkler system and a VESDA smoke detection system.
Digital Reality Trust
Wakefield, MA
As the prime contract manager, Encon provided engineering, architecture and management services for the construction of 33,000 square feet of data center space and 39,000 square feet of interior and exterior infrastructure support space. The site will be built in four phases with four nominal 8,200 Data Center Pods and supporting infrastructure spaces. Services included mechanical, electrical, fire protection and structural engineering, architecture and construction management. Master planning services were provided to coordinate all four phases of construction.
The mechanical systems are chilled water based with five nominal 450 ton air cooled chillers to be installed in an N+1 configuration, de-rated to 400 tons when using a 40% glycol solution with down-flow and up-flow air handling units. The pumping system is a 2N configuration. Each of the four Data Center Pods and supporting Power Rooms has a nominal cooling load of 375 tons. The chilled water distribution piping system is a looped configuration with two flow paths each point of chilled water usage. The entire mechanical system was designed with isolable components and piping sections to eliminate single points of failure, either in equipment or distribution.
Electrically, the four Data Center Pods are in an “A” two-pod subsystem and a “B” two-pod subsystem arrangement. Each pod is provided with 1.0 MW of technical power with three 750 kVA paralleled UPS modules in an N+1 configuration. Each two-pod subsystem is supported by three 2.0 MW standby generators in an N+1 configuration, with a total of six 2.0 MW standby generators installed.
Charlestown, MA
Operating efficiencies of the new mechanical system will be greatly increased, reducing support equipment electrical demand and allowing for the installation of additional technical loads. All project work will be phased to allow for continuous site operations, with no network traffic outages. The unique situation involving this project was designing a custom built glycol based cooling System that had to constructed in place due to limited access points and extreme space limitations.
Fredriksted, St.Croix, USVI
Since 2003 Encon has been providing MEP engineering and construction management services for Global Crossing’s St. Croix facilities in the US Virgin Islands. The site has two buildings; the first is the South American Crossing (SAC) building, approximately 80,000 square feet; the second is the Mid Atlantic Crossing (MAC) building, approximately 40,000 square feet. Both SAC and MAC are terrestrial cable landing stations for Globing Crossing’s worldwide sub-sea fiber network.
In 2009 Encon provided engineering and construction management services for the replacement of all mechanical systems in the SAC building. The building is located approximately 250 feet from the ocean, a harsh operating environment for exterior mechanical and electrical equipment.
Exterior mechanical equipment life cycles had been reduced to less than 5 years because of the environment and the use of excessively long refrigerant piping runs beyond good engineering design practice and published installation guidelines.
Of the original 22 Direct Expansion (DX) split system compressors serving 13 air conditioning systems in a 2N configuration, only 5 were operational putting the site in jeopardy of losing network traffic without warning.
Encon’s design solution replaced all condensing units, with each new unit to be covered externally and internally with a special ocean environment rated anti-corrosion coating. Then all existing refrigerant piping was removed and the new condensing units were relocated to eliminate excessive piping lengths.Cooling capacity was expanded to 220 tons to meet current technical equipment loads and additional infrastructure was provided for future growth.
Electrical work beyond the mechanical systems upgrades included the reconfiguration of the main electrical switch board and generator paralleling gear, converting a “four plus four” 520 kW generator 2N system to a “three plus three” 2N system.
Project work was completed while maintaining continuous site operations with no network outages.
Digital Realty Trust
ACS
Telx
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