First Sustainable Airport Central Utility Plant Arrives at LAX

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Arup recently celebrated the official opening and ribbon cutting event for the new central utilities plant at Los Angeles International Airport, California. As the engineer-of-record and lead consultant to the Clark/McCarthy Joint Venture, Arup delivered full architecture, engineering and commissioning services for the new 75,000-square-foot, $438-million LAX CUP.

The first major design/build project undertaken by the city of Los Angeles, the new LAX CUP replaces the 50-year-old existing CUP with a more modern and efficient facility. Arup’s innovative design has saved the airport $20 million in capital costs and is expected to save $7 million each year in operating costs. Considered the first sustainable utility plant at any U.S. Airport, the LAX CUP is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification and will be approximately 25 percent more energy efficient than the former facility.

The new LAX CUP consists of three main architectural elements: a four-story building that contains the plant and staff offices, an above-ground cylindrical 1.5 million gallon thermal energy-storage tank that rises nearly four stories, and a maintenance facility with workshops on the ground floor and cooling towers above. The central utility plant serves the recently renovated and expanded Tom Bradley International Terminal, the remaining eight terminals, the iconic Theme Building and the East Administration Building.

Behind the metal and glass facade of the new CUP is 20,000 tons of cooling capacity to supply all nine LAX terminals. The cooling capacity is delivered by a plant that includes electric-driven centrifugal chillers, heat recovery boilers, primary and secondary chilled water pumps, cooling towers and thermal energy storage. An 8.4 Megawatt co-generation plant consists of gas-turbine-driven generators to provide electricity and the “waste” heat will be reused for heating and to power additional steam-driven chillers. The CUP has been designed to support future phases of the LAX multi-billion dollar capital improvement program.

Project team members include :

• Client/contractor: Clark/McCarthy A Joint Venture
• Owner/end-user: Los Angeles World Airport
• Architect: Gruen Associates
• Commissioning authority: Capital Engineering Consultants
• Sustainability consultant: Greenform
• Co-generation consultant: PID Engineering
• Permitting consultant: Kimberlina Whettam and Associates
• Power quality consultant: KSG Consulting Engineers
• Traffic engineering consultant: Crain & Associates

Photo courtesy of Teena Videriksen/Arup.