June 14, 2004 witnessed the ribbon-cutting ceremony of an advanced cooling, heating and power (CHP) plant featuring a BROAD chiller. The event was co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the City of Austin and Austin Energy Company. Austin Mayor William Wynn is pictured above (holding the oversized sissors) with other dignitaries opening the CHP plant.

This CHP plant is one of seven high efficiency projects awarded by DOE in 2001 following President George W. Bush's National Energy Policy. Remarkably, BROAD non-electric chillers are featured on the largest three of these seven projects sponsored by DOE.

The Austin project is noted for its advanced modular design, producing 4.5 MW of electricity and also having the largest single non-electric chiller ever installed in America at 8,792 kW (2,500 RT). And also it is the biggest green construction project in America.

The chiller uses 100% exhaust energy from a gas turbine generator for cooling operation.saving natural gas 3 million cubic meters for customers annually.

The project appears complicated, but its key technology is the exhaust chiller which is easy for BROAD to manufacture. So far, BROAD is the only company capable of producing exhaust type chillers in the world.

Officials and experts' comment on BROAD

Ron Fiskum
(Integrated Energy Systems Technical Manager Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy US Department of Energy)

This is BROAD USA. That's what we call it here in America, in New Jersey. This is the biggest chiller we've had in the United States and it's tied on to a major-sized turbine—a 4.5 MW turbine - and we take in the waste heat from that turbine and we power this chiller. And this will supply cooling and electricity to the part of the Domain establishment here, and we want to thank BROAD very much for their participation in the program. They probably make one of the best chillers in the world. They make only chillers, they don't make anything else but chillers, from 4-ton all the way up to 6000-ton.

And we are lucky enough to get one here in Austin. And as the first for this type of technology, interface, we are hoping for the best, and we hope to see this being duplicated and triplicated throughout the world because this technology is the future, and it's clean, the environment is going to be totally assisted, we will reduce the emissions and our energy savings on this, if things work, possibly will be very huge and very good. So, we are very thankful for BROAD for being a partner in this technology and with Austin Energy. We are hoping for a very big success.

What do you think about the quality of the chiller?
Oh, I think it's A-1. I told you it's the best in the world, did I not?

Cliff Braddock, CEM
(Director Energy Business Development Austin Energy )

Ok. Hi! I am Cliff Braddock with Austin Energy, that's the city of Austin, Texas Municipal Electric Utility. I am really pleased today that we are introducing to the USA - to the world - the first application of a turbine whose entire exhaust is captured in the form of this 2500-ton absorption chiller, 2500 tons, free cooling, 45 degree Fahrenheit, chilled water available to serve our district energy system located outside the walls to my left.

And so standing beside this wonderful chiller gives you a sense of awe and appreciation of what we have come to expect - very high quality delivery of chilled water service year round, 365 days per year. And we are very excited that emissions will be reduced because of our output-based emission standard that we have in Texas. So, with this chiller we are not going to be operating probably the equivalent of 2500 kW of electric chillers. So, perhaps this is a wave of the future. Stay tuned and we hope to see more of this replicated, perhaps a little bit larger, hopefully a whole lot smaller. It could be used for hospitals, hospitality suites, convention centers, office buildings.

So, it's a great day in the U.S.A for energy efficiencies.

Pat Hoffman
(Acting Program Manager Distributed Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy U.S. Department of Energy)

The Department of Energy is very pleased to be involved in the partnership between BROAD, Solar Turbine, Burns & McDonnell and Austin Energy in this integrated CHP system. CHP is the wave of the future and it is very important to utilize the waste energy in the United States, with the BROAD chiller, to maximize the use of energy conversion efficiency. So we are very proud to be a part of this partnership.

Bob DeVault
(Program Manager Cooling, Heating & Power Oak Ridge National Laboratories)

This BROAD absorption chiller is the first of its kind in the world that would use what otherwise would be wasted energy from a gas turbine to produce chilled water, and we expect that in the next 20 or 30 years this kind of product, instead of being one of a kind, would become a major mainstream product throughout the world.

Richard Sweetser
(President Exergy Partners )

I'm standing in front of a 2500-ton chiller made by BROAD Air Conditioning, in Changsha, China, and what you are really looking at is something that takes advantage of the waste energy exhaust gas from a gas turbine, a 4.5 MW Solar turbine, and turns it into chilled water. And if you look closely at this particular device you will notice it is rather large.

For the 2500-ton chiller is large, but if you look even closer you can look and see a very fine product. You are going to see good welding; you are going to see beautiful fit and finish; you are going to see perpendicularity and parallelism; all in all, this is quite a product. It's the first of its kind in the US as far as being able to use turbine exhaust and turning it into chilled water. But it is also quite a good piece of equipment. It's something that the partnership between BROAD in China and Solar Turbines in San Diego has gone a long way to help in reducing our imported oil, our natural gas situation, as well as, making our energy grid a little bit more reliable.