Project profile: Stanford University Central Energy Facility

At the heart of Stanford University’s transformational, campus-wide energy system is a new, technologically-advanced central energy facility. The system replaces a 100% fossil-fuel-based co-generation plant with primarily electrical power—65% of which comes from renewable sources—and a first-of-its-kind heat recovery system, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and fossil fuel and water use. The facility comprises a net-positive-energy administrative building, a heat recovery chiller plant, a cooling and heating plant, a service yard, and a new campus-wide main electrical substation. Designed to sensitively integrate into the surrounding campus, the architectural expression is one of lightness, transparency and sustainability to express the facility’s purpose.

Stanford University Central Energy Facility; Stanford, California; ZGF Architects LLP

Building program type(s): Office—10,000 sq ft, Other—central utility plant

(2017 AIA COTE Top Ten award recipient)