In 1990, construction began on a 24-story, 430,000-square-foot office building known as the 801 Tower in downtown Los Angeles. As means of shifting peak loads and qualifying for incentives and off-peak rates offered by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the building was designed to include 8,300 ton hours of thermal energy storage (TES). The system is actually capable of approximately 11,000 ton hours of capacity, which in hindsight, was a stroke of engineering prudence that has paid off with ever-changing electricity prices and energy markets.
Flack and Kurtz of San Francisco, a design engineering firm that provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and other services, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) may not have anticipated all the changes in energy markets during the past decade. Looking back today, however, this system has proven to be a prime example of engineering foresight. Flack and Kurtz, the building owner, and electric utility recognized the need for flexibility to deal with the uncertainties in electrical supplies that have been exacerbated by efforts toward deregulation and by rising fuel costs. Leadership shown by LADWP with incentives and off-peak rates was part of an overall business plan that has shielded customers in that service territory from many of the problems faced today by ratepayers elsewhere in the state and the rest of the country. Concern about the reliability of energy supplies and the need for design foresight have become the norm in California and the nation.