Credit Suisse’s offices at the Metropolitan Life tower in Manhattanan rely on an ice storage system to keep cool, according to Forbes.
In the basement, three main cooling rooms house chilling machines and 64 tanks that hold 800 gallons of water each. Credit Suisse has a traditional air conditioning system, but engineers use the energy-saving system, which needs to cool 1.9 million square feet of office space, first.
Trane energy services constructed the system in about four months. Trane also developed a system for Morgan Stanley’s Westchester County offices and just completed a new system for its offices on Fifth Avenue. A new Goldman Sachs headquarters will also have ice cooling.
Credit Suisse, which received incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, spent more than $3 million to renovate its cooling system. Ice storage at Credit Suisse lowers the facility’s peak energy use by 900 kilowatts, and reduces overall electric usage by 2.15 million kilowatt-hours annually – enough to power about 200 homes.