Facilities is closing the chilled water supply to some campus buildings until the end of August.
From 2 p.m. Wed., August 19, until 11 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020, Facilities Management is closing the chilled water supply to some campus buildings, and is strongly encouraging faculty and staff in those buildings to telecommute.
The notice from Facilities Management follows:
Facilities Management Outages
Chilled Water Cooling
California is facing a dire electricity shortage these two weeks driven primarily by the crushing heat wave and augmented by the cloud cover over parts of California reducing solar output. To that end the governor has asked all the UCs to do what they can to reduce their demand on the power grid and all generators to make as much as possible, even overproduce to export if possible. Here, at UCLA, we are experiencing our own shortage of electricity and chilled water. We have ramped up our cogen production, but we are only getting about 60 percent of our normal solar supply, so we are still taking anywhere from 15 to 20 MW of electricity from the grid. We are maxed out on our chilled water production, of which most is provided using expensive, scarce purchased electricity, and we are still struggling to keep up with campus cooling. In the interest of responding to state orders and preserving chilled water for our essential campus functions (medical buildings, vivariums, server rooms, etc.) we are closing the chilled water supply to the following buildings as an initial step and encouraging staff and faculty in the those buildings to telecommute until the end of August. Please note that electrical service will continue to be provided to the impacted facilities, but by reducing our chilled water load, we have the ability to shut down electric chillers that are powered by the grid. We will monitor plant conditions and the weather forecast and adjust this outage period as required. If occupants of these facilities have concerns or believe we have overlooked something, please contact Lewis Rosman, Director of FM Energy Services and Building Controls, at lrosman@facnet.ucla.edu.
Start Date/Time: Wednesday, August 19, 2020 2:00 PM
End Date/Time: Sunday, August 30,2020 11:00 PM
Location:
- Macgowan Hall
- Mathematical Sciences Bldg.
- Melnitz Hall
- Ostin Basketball Center
- Public Affairs Bldg.
- Royce Hall
Location Details
In addition to the facilities listed above, the following buildings are also impacted by this outage:
- Kaplan Hall
- Kaufman Hall
- West Alumni Center.
Contact Info
Lewis Rosman
Preferred contact method: by Phone
(Phone: 6-3856) 310-925-9101
Coordination Details
This is an unscheduled outage to make an emergency utility repair.
for more information
Contact:
Lewis Rosman, Director of FM Energy Services and Building Controls
lrosman@facnet.ucla.edu
(Phone: 6-3856) 310-925-9101
