Expanding Campus Sustainability: CHP Firm Cordia Bringing Renewable-Powered Cooling to Future ASU Health Headquarters
Combined heating and power (CHP) and microgrid technology firm Cordia will use its future renewable CHP plant to cool the future Phoenix headquarters of Arizona State University Health campus.
ASU signed a 20-year agreement to purchase chilled water cooling service from Cordia. The health headquarters planned for construction within the downtown Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC) is expected to be completed and open in time for the fall 2028 semester.
“ASU is committed to building campuses that are efficient, resilient, and designed for long-term impact,” Tim Smith, facilities development and management vice president, Arizona State University, said in a statement. “Collaborating with Cordia to serve ASU Health with renewable district cooling supports our sustainability goals while providing a dependable energy solution that can grow with the Downtown Phoenix campus.”
CHP can be Steady Pulse of Microgrid's Beating Heart
The ASU headquarters would become the sixth campus building to be supplied by Cordia’s district chilled water system. The company expects to break ground on Plant 4 by March and be fully operational by the fall of 2027.
“This agreement is about planning for the future in a responsible way,” said Jacob Graff, chief operating officer of Cordia, in a statement. “With Plant 4 breaking ground this year, we’re expanding a renewable-powered energy system that supports ASU’s sustainability goals while delivering reliable cooling for one of the most important health and research districts in the region.”
Cordia has been a longtime operator of ASU’s Tempe CHP facility and last year signed a contract to extend its operations and maintenance work at the 16-MW generation plant. The company has contracted energy work for numerous campuses, including Baylor and Duquesne universities.
The 10,200-ton Plant 4 is planned for construction on land owned by the University of Arizona through a 50-year ground lease, according to reports. It will be powered through contract by carbon-free electricity from utility Arizona Public Service.
In addition to the ASU Health Headquarters, Cordia’s Plant 4 also will supply other buildings within the PBC, including the ASTRA Towers and University of Arizona’s Center for Advanced Nuclear and Immunological Therapies.
ASU Health was designed to be located at the center of the Phoenix Bioscience Core. It will include new and existing schools aligned with a focus on advanced health care, medical research and treatment.
The PBC is a 30-acre, city-owned campus housing public, private, academic and clinical research organizations in downtown Phoenix. ASU, University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University all working within the PBC, as well as the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Pathology Watch, Ordinatrix, Wexford Science and Technology, FAKnostics and Calviri, among others.
Cordia also owns microgrid projects, including the Pittsburgh International Airport microgrid built several years ago.
About the Author
Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Head of Content
Managing Editor
For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
I’ve spent the last 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 33-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.