Completed in the spring semester of 2010, the Thermal Energy Storage Tank located on the west side of the Bakersfield College campus remains inactive. The tank has no set date for full operation due to setbacks and problems with adapting the tank into the current cooling system.
“We’re still trying to commission the tank and trying to work out the bugs in the system,” said LaMont Schiers, executive director of Administrative Services at BC. “We’re working with various contractors to be able to get the tank functioning the way it was designed.”
Once the TES Tank is adapted into the chiller system, a network of underground tunnels and large cooling devices installed throughout campus, the tank will act as a replacement to the expensive gas and electric cooling system currently providing air conditioning in the classrooms.
“You can call it a fuel cell in that it holds cold water,” said Schiers. “What we do is, during the night when no one is around, [we] use our library chiller and our Language Arts chiller, which are two devices that produce cold water, and chill the water temperature in the tank so the following day when the temperatures get hot, instead of running the electrical chillers during the peak demand hours between noon and 6 p.m., we just pull the cool water out of the tank.”
With the construction of the solar field and the TES Tank, the school is attempting to benefit on the renewable sources offered by the environment, saving money in the process.
“The college is striving to go green, to be more sustainable, and what we mean by that is to be more environmentally friendly so we’re not so invasive on the environment,” said Schiers.
Once the solar field is completed in the northeast parking lot, the tank will be powered from energy gathered by the panels.
“The beauty of these devices, the tank and the photo field,” said Schiers, “is that they are going to pay for themselves because they are going to save us money.”