While the UMass campus anticipated steady growth in construction on campus, RMF was commissioned to develop the Comprehensive Campus Energy Plan. As a result of the study, upgrades to two plants were recommended to connect new and additional existing buildings to the centralized chilled water systems.
The new North Plant was built over the existing and undersized Polymer Plant site in a parallelogram arrangement to improve the view corridor from the center of campus to distant hills and mountains to the northwest of campus. Glass was used extensively at the pedestrian level in the exterior walls, to allow technology on display to serve an educational purpose, and to enhance operations.
Improvements at the Integrated Sciences Building (ISB) Plant included the addition of a new cooling tower cell and a condenser water pump. A weather enclosure was constructed over the new variable frequency drives for the cooling towers. Packaged cells will also be installed at both plants, to provide approximately 100 tons of free cooling during extremely cold weather.
