GPA
contracted with Makai
Ocean Engineering of Hawaii to conduct a
feasibility study for the application of a Sea Water
Air Conditioning System for Tumon Bay. The kickoff
meeting with stakeholders took place the week of May
23, 2005. The final presentation and report was
completed in FY 2006. This project is GPA's first foray
into making major investments in renewable energy.
SWAC Technology
Sea water air conditioning takes advantage of available deep cold seawater instead of energy-intensive refrigeration systems to cool the chilled water in one or more buildings. A preliminary investigation has identified Tumon Bay as a prime candidate for this technology. It has good access to deep water, high air conditioning utilization, a high density of large air conditioning users, and although it has lower electric energy rates than Hawaii, Guam has relatively high electric energy rates than most utilities on the U.S. mainland.
Potential Benefits
A sea water air conditioning system has significant environmental benefits. These benefits include drastic reductions in electricity consumption which reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas production and the reduction in the use of fresh water in conventional AC cooling towers. The substitution of simple heat exchangers for chiller machinery eliminates the use ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). In particular since Guam electric energy relies on the use of diesel and residual fuel oils, sea water air conditioning will reduce the use of these fuels and the pollutants from this use. Additionally, every dollar not spent on off-island fuel remains and mulitplies in the Guam economy.
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