By any measure, the University of Florida in Gainesville is large. Its
enrollment of 46,000 is one of the 10 largest on a single campus in the
country. Its faculty of over 4,000 is one of the largest in the southeastern
U.S. and its campus, encompassing 2,000 acres and over 200 academic buildings
in the city of Gainesville, is enormous. It is this scale that makes the
university's approach to comfort-cooling interesting and instructive.
An interesting feature of the campus cooling system philosophy is the
decision to rely on area chilled-water plants throughout the campus, rather
than either a single central plant, or individual units for buildings. The
area plants — currently eight in number — deliver chilled water, typically from
centrifugal chillers, to surrounding buildings. Most serve buildings within a
1,000- to 1,500-ft radius. In the area of greatest building density,
several chiller-plants supply a common chilled water loop. In other cases,
plants with multiple chillers serve a specific group of buildings. In total,
the eight chiller-plants provide the capacity for 37,000 tons of chilled water.