Value Delivered
The Qualcomm Q Expansion project, which was certified LEED Silver, included the addition of 248,000-square-feet of office space to the existing building, along with a new 21,000-square-foot central plant building. This facility is used for development of cellular technologies, and therefore, the facility required N + 1 reliability for power and cooling.
Client Objectives
Qualcomm sought to expand its operations by adding additional office space and an energy central plant to provide redundant power and additional cooling capacity.
Solutions
The expansion featured a 328-seat lecture hall, conference and training rooms, software laboratories, IT and network rooms, a café, private offices, and open plan cubicle offices.
All electrical systems were upgraded, along with the fire alarm and life safety systems. A new 4.5-megawatt (MW) 12 kilovolt (kV) gas turbine generator was installed, along with a two-stage, exhaust-fire, 1,751-ton absorption chiller that was connected to an existing chilled water and condensing water system.
The central plant consisted of three 2.7MW diesel generators, two 1.6MW uninterruptable power supplies (UPS), one 1MW UPS, and two 600 kilowatt UPS. It provides 12kV distribution of normal and emergency power to the campus. In addition, the project added four 860-ton electric chillers and one 1150-ton steam absorption chiller that provide cooling for the data center and balance of the campus.
Client Background
Qualcomm is a telecommunications software engineering firm that is headquartered in San Diego and has more than 170 offices in over 40 countries.