Issues

A major upgrade to the infrastructure to Waste Management Inc.'s critical production data center in Austin, Texas necessitated the replacement of two 400-ton chillers, concurrent with other HVAC and mechanical upgrades. Daikin Applied supplied two latest-generation 400-ton Pathfinder® chillers to replace the 2002-built facility's original chillers. In order to keep operations live during the two-phased replacement process – and meet 2N redundancy requirements —Daikin Applied also provided a temporary chiller.

Solution

A trailer-mounted Daikin Applied 300-ton AGS air cooled chiller was temporarily installed at one of the building's dock bays for the duration of the upgrade in summer 2014. "The temporary cooling was seamless," says Carlton Griffis, senior project manager with Alcatex, Inc. data center design-build specialist. "The Daikin Applied Service Group team attached the unit to an emergency coupler location so the water loop could be brought online seamlessly."

The chiller replacements were staged over June and July 2014. "It was particularly critical to have the standby chiller available during the decommissioning process of the first original chiller when the first of two new chillers was installed," says Kenneth Morgenroth, service sales representative with Daikin Applied in San Antonio who spearheaded the chiller replacement project.

Adds Randy Zadow, product manager for rental chillers, Daikin Applied: "Having the rental chiller on site gave the customer a comfort level in the event that something should go wrong, their operations would continue."