Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor, Kim Driscoll, announced that the state is awarding $18 Million to drive the development of an equitable clean energy workforce. Vocational high schools will be a core source for training this labor force. Additionally, aggressive Net Zero 2050 goals are also being implemented across the state.
Recognizing these factors in Wakefield, MA has led to an alliance between the Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (WMGLD) and local education departments in the development of the new Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School and Wakefield High School. WMGLD is developing an Energy Park that will power both schools using all electric heating and cooling which will provide environmental benefits that align with the state’s and community’s decarbonization goals. This will also provide vast opportunities for educating students about clean energy technologies in a real-world environment.
Building electrification is a core concept in Bala’s sustainability practice, and the team is well versed in developing optimal engineering strategies and building solutions that enable the shift to all electric. That said, designing HVAC, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems for vocational schools is far more complex than a standard high school. The demands of vocational facilities with science & technology and Career Technical Education (CTE) programs are vastly different from a traditional K-12 school. Many CTE spaces require more robust infrastructure to support the program and also need to meet industrial standards. Vocational schools have a much higher energy use compared to typical K-12 schools and the need to mitigate fossil fuel use and impact on the environment becomes that much more important.
The following are some of the challenges and solutions that Bala used in the design of this facility:
HVAC & ELECTRICAL
Challenge: Traditionally, with a power loss, standby power systems have supported building freeze protection by powering control systems, gas fired boilers and associated pumps. The electrical demand to power this equipment is low when compared to all electric systems. The utility company is providing an energy park with an emergency/standby generator to support this school and the nearby high school but could not support all of the freeze protection loads for the building.
Solution: Bala’s electrical and HVAC team came up with a solution to limit the electrical demand from HVAC systems during loss of power by isolating loads (e.g. plug loads, vocational equipment) at the main switchboard and staging equipment to limit the electrical demand.
PLUMBING & ELECTRICAL
Challenge: During design all electric paint spray booths were reviewed to minimize a long run of gas piping through the building. There were two paint spray booths that would have required over 800 kW of power if they were all electric. This would have resulted in an increase in the electrical service and an added cost to the project.
Solution: System electrification allows for natural gas to be utilized for process specific applications. An evaluation was performed by the design and construction team to see if all electric paint spray booths made sense for this school. The analysis determined that the initial cost to upgrade the service would outweigh the cost of extending the gas pipe through the building. The gas fired paint spray booths had a lower capital and operational cost and made sense for this project, however this needs to be looked at on a project by project basis to evaluate the financial and environmental impacts of gas fired systems.
ELECTRICAL
Challenge: Typically, conduit distribution from the main electric room to distribution panels is routed below the slab to avoid potential above ceiling coordination issues. This building is constructed on a ledge which limited the depth of excavation below the building and did not allow for extensive underslab power distribution. The additional electrical demands and distribution to support the all electric systems made this situation more challenging.
Solution: The project’s architects, DRA, provided a higher floor-to-floor height on the first two floors for the vocational shops and lower ceilings in the corridors. This architectural strategy provided additional space in the ceiling plenum for conduit distribution. Bala modeled these conduits in Revit to ensure that the conduit distribution was feasible.
PLUMBING
Challenge: The school is large which makes a central domestic hot water system costly due to the extensive piping distribution required. Point-of-use hot water heaters were evaluated, and while this solution was deemed to be cost effective, it would result in many water heaters distributed throughout the building which would require servicing and maintenance. This would also increase the electrical load required to operate the system.
Solution: Bala proposed a hybrid solution where five domestic hot water systems were provided. This allowed a reasonable amount of equipment for the school to service and maintain while reducing the distribution and recirculation piping.
CONCLUSION
All electric vocational schools present a number of challenges and subsequent opportunities. Due to the varying nature of the educational programs, these types of projects cannot be approached with a one size fits all approach. Each program needs to be evaluated by the entire team to come up with strategies that meet the program needs while being energy efficient, operationally efficient, and cost effective.
Once implemented, all of these solutions will provide educational opportunities for students who are interested in enabling a Net Zero future. They will have hands-on access to sustainable technologies to learn in real-time, and dream of new technologies and practices, to build a career in clean energy.
