The Coca-Cola Company
SOFT DRINK GIANT’S HEADQUARTERS IS MORE REFRESHING THAN EVER
Trane Helps Coke Modernize Its Headquarters With New Refrigerant and Fresh Thinking
The Coca-Cola Company’s North Avenue Tower in Atlanta is part of the company’s international headquarters. Built in 1980,
the 26-story building had been well served by its three 1,300-ton Trane centrifugal water chillers. But times change, and Jones Lang La
Salle, the facility management firm wanted to convert the chiller plant to make the building more eco-friendly. While this could be
accomplished with a simple refrigerant conversion, Coke would be missing a valuable opportunity to improve efficiency and reliability.
And given that their chiller plant is located on the building’s 13th floor, and insufficient elevator capacity eliminated the option of
bringing in new chillers, maximizing the life of the existing chillers was clearly the right choice.
Trane offered a solution that not only updated the chillers with a more environmentally friendly refrigerant but also
greatly improved their efficiency and life expectancy—the TRANE TriStar™ conversion. By replacing the old centrifugal compressors with
new highly efficient compressors compatible with R-123 refrigerant, this conversion could be engineered to fit into existing mechanical
rooms, avoiding costly building renovations. It also allowed the owner to re-engineer the entire chiller system and optimize performance
around the new compressor; a process that ultimately yielded greater efficiency with more flexibility to meet changing building conditions
and new environmental concerns. Quite a step up from simply replacing old refrigerant.
It was immediately apparent that the new compressors had greatly reduced operating noise, but what became clear later was
how much they had also reduced operating costs. The converted system operated at a much-improved 0.580 kW per ton efficiency level, nearly
doubling the old efficiency rating of 0.952 kW per ton. The conversion also gave Trane the opportunity to update the existing heat
chillers with marine water boxes for easier tube inspection and cleaning. All in all, Trane’s TriStar conversion treated the Coca-Cola
Company to a lower project cost, faster economic payback and simple project justification—and what company wouldn’t enjoy that?
26-story corporate headquarters, nearly 1 million square feet.
The Coca-Cola Company
Jones Lang La Salle
Trane
Three TRANE TriStar retrofit compressors each with 12,000 tons of cooling capacity at 0.589 kW per ton efficiency
TRANE Tracer™ CH531 microelectronic control panels.
|