The Queen Mary
Project Details
Building Type
- Hotel
Location
- Long Beach, California
Square Footage
- 125,000
Project Type
- Energy Analysis
Design Team
Client: d’Autremont
Helms & Assoc.
The Queen Mary
The Queen Mary, one of the largest ocean liners ever built, first began her voyages in 1936 as a luxury liner and later continued service as a troop ship during World War II. In 1967, she was retired after completing 1001 Atlantic crossings. Today, the Queen Mary is owned by the City of Long Beach in California and operates as a tourist attraction and hotel.
The Queen Mary’s cooling and heating were provided by an energy plant located nearly three-quarters of a mile from the ship. As part of a planned renovation to the ship and on-shore expansion, a plan to build a new energy plant facility closer to the ship was proposed. Quest Energy Group was retained to evaluate possible plant options and to determine the energy and utility savings associated with the new facility upgrades.
Quest evaluated a wide-range of plant configurations including system making use of thermal energy storage and a HVAC system based on sea water condensing. Ultimately, Quest was able to determine that the optimal solution for the Queen Mary was a more conventional plant which would provide a reduction in annual utility, labor and maintenance costs. The recommended plant makes use of high efficiency centrifugal chillers, variable speed chilled water pumping, and conventional cooling towers.