Energy Plant

HKUST Guangzhou

The HKUST Guangzhou Energy Center focuses on performance and flexibility, reducing the campus reliance on outside energy supply, increasing resilience, and enabling advanced operation controls using real-time energy data.

Three buildings, a data center, a district energy center, and a fire services center, make up the university’s energy complex, providing chilled and hot water for all buildings on campus and supporting its long-term carbon neutrality goal. The systems present include high-performance chillers and associated cooling towers, generators and electrical support systems, and a campus-scale heat recovery system. The latter uses waste heat from data center cooling to provide over 95% of all hot water needs on campus. Where possible, the buildings include PV panels to harness solar power, and all critical infrastructure is elevated above the 200-year flood level to enhance resilience.

The three buildings serve as a single entity by design. As student housing overlooks the energy center, the buildings are soundproofed where possible with roofs designed as a fifth façade. Crafted to be porous in composition, the buildings feature a gridded façade textured with striated metal, serving as ventilation for the machinery, and glass, to display the internal systems at work. The grids are block-colored and change appearance depending on where the viewer stands.

Beyond the buildings’ technical functions, the energy center provides education and innovation opportunities, furthering the campus’ vision of a “living lab.” Students can access real-time data on the campus energy performance, and conduct research or teaching in the lab spaces within the center.

Location

Guangzhou, China

Client

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Type

Education

Size

12,000 m2 / 130,000 ft2

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Project Type:Education
Project Location:Asia Pacific