In the past five years, however, APS
Energy Services, Northwind Phoenix’s parent
company, has not only grown the downtown
Phoenix system, but it has also expanded its
operation to neighboring California and other
cities in Arizona. The Central Operations
Center control rooms for the downtown
Phoenix system – located at both the Phoenix
Convention Center and the Ice House – no
longer solely operate the Phoenix system.
Instead, their walls are lined with computer
monitors and video screen monitoring
equipment that also allows them to operate
the Arizona and California plants (fig. 1).
Figure 1. APS Energy Services/Northwind Phoenix Network of Plants and Remote Operations
Connectivity. Some plants are staffed 24/7, while others are staffed eight hours per day, and yet
others always operate remotely.
CENTRAL OPERATIONS CENTER
PHOENIX
CONVENTION CENTER
Downtown Phoenix, Ariz.
24/7 or Unmanned
ICE HOUSE PLANT
Downtown Phoenix, Ariz.
24/7 or Unmanned
Chase Field
Diamondbacks
Phoenix, Ariz.
Unmanned
Staffing: Plant Manager & 5 Operators
Mid-Town Phoenix
Phoenix, Ariz.
Arizona State
University (ASU) CHP
Tempe, Ariz.
Plant Manager &
5 Operators
24/7
Tucson
Convention Center
Tucson, Ariz.
2 Operators
8 hrs/day
Existing Plant
Future Plant
The central control rooms
no longer solely operate the
Phoenix system. Their walls
are lined with equipment that
also allows them to operate
plants in Arizona and
California.
ASU Polytechnic
Mesa, Ariz.
Unmanned
East Valley Project
1 Operator
8 hrs/day
Midtown Tucson
Police - Fire
Tucson, Ariz.
Unmanned
Sierra Pine
Martel, Calif.
1 Operator
8 hrs/day
East Valley Project
1 Operator
8 hrs/day
Source: APS Energy Services.
These plants include
a combined heat and power plant at Arizona
State University in nearby Tempe, with a
design capacity of providing 20,000 tons
of cooling capacity, 16 MW of power, 4 MW
of diesel generator backup and 160,000
lb/hr of steam;
a CHP plant at the Sierra Pine particle board
plant 700 miles away near Sacramento,
Calif., which generates 4 MW of power
and 25,000 lb/hr of steam;
a CHP plant at the Tucson Convention
Center, supplying 4,000 tons of cooling,
1. 6 MW of power and 21 MMbtu/hr of
heating; and
a small plant at a Tucson police and fire
station, with 150 tons of cooling capacity.
Additional plants in the surrounding
Phoenix area are being discussed and are
in various stages of planning, design and
construction. They are expected to begin
operating between 2008 and 2011.
Not Originally Planned
APS Energy Services always anticipated
growth in its downtown Northwind Phoenix
system, but adding plants outside the downtown area was not part of the original plan.
The expansion outside of Phoenix started in
2002 with the construction of the CHP plant
at the Tucson Convention Center. At that
point, APS Energy Services began to consider
various options for operating and maintaining
that plant in alignment with its operating
philosophy, “Excellence in Everything We
Do” – while also ensuring safety, reliability,
quality, responsiveness, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, as well as complying with all
state and city regulations.
Northwind Phoenix always
anticipated growth in its
Phoenix system, but adding
plants outside the downtown
area was not part of the
original plan.
The company decided to staff the new
Tucson plant with two full-time operators.
This required the downtown Phoenix system
operators to expand their duties to include
remotely operating the Tucson facility on a
‘real-time’ daily basis for the remaining 16
hours. This arrangement meant the Phoenix
staff would have to learn how to operate two
very different plants. Since Northwind Phoenix
does much of its own maintenance, it also
had to provide supplemental maintenance
support for Tucson from Phoenix. Although
this plan was, at first, somewhat uncomfortable for all the operators, the company realized it had already been remotely operating
the Chase Field plant since it started up two
years earlier.
In addition to real-time monitoring and
controls, cameras were also installed at the
Tucson plant to enable Phoenix operators to
view that facility. Installation of this equipment has since been repeated at all the company’s remote plants. Such equipment makes
it possible to operate a plant with the same,
complete capability as if the operator were
sitting in an on-site control room. Operators
can constantly monitor the conditions at
each plant and make any control changes
they wish – from starting and stopping individual pieces of equipment to completely
starting up or shutting down a plant.
High-speed Internet, fiber optic and T1
lines were installed at each plant to connect
the plants and provide full remote capabilities.
This added approximately 10 percent to the
control system installation costs at each plant.
The additional expense was easily recaptured,
