St. Francis Medical Center - West Ewa Beach, HI

What is Off-Peak Cooling (OPC)? CALMAC’s Off-Peak Cooling systems (OPC) utilize a standard packaged chiller to produce ice during the night and store it in modular ICEBANK® thermal-energy storage tanks. The stored ice provides cooling the following day to meet the building’s air-conditioning requirement.

Why should administrators and engineers consider OPC for medical facilities?

• Provides medical facility administrators with a tool for significantly reducing energy costs as well as other benefits.
• OPC is a demand responsive system offering further cost saving opportunities.
• Make the standby chiller provide a return on investment by having it make cooling using low-cost electricity.
• Reduce the size of the standby generator.
• A dedicated operating room OPC system can easily supply colder temperatures to operating-room suites, while allowing the existing hospital chiller plant to operate at higher, more efficient temperatures.
• The savings can be invested toward advancing the quality of patient care, new or expanded facilities, training, increasing salaries, etc.

A common misconception is that medical facilities are not good candidates for OPC because they require air conditioning continuously, 24 hours a day. However, using OPC in conjunction with conventional air-conditioning systems can provide significant energy-cost reductions and other benefits.

A total of 80 CALMAC IceBank tanks were installed at three hospitals in Hawaii. Facilities at the hospitals (Kapiolani Medical Center, St. Francis West, and St. Francis Liliha) are managed by Sodexho Health Care Services. The off-peak cooling systems shift a total of 2000 tn-hrs from on-peak to off-peak.

We also encourage you to fill out our thermal storage analysis form, and a member of our team will contact you with an evaluation of your facility.

Within this site you can learn more about CALMAC’s OPC systems and the specific benefits that this type of HVAC system can provide for you.