Cordia Energy ready to build huge underground plant to further cool downtown Phoenix
Below your feet on the streets of downtown Phoenix is a network of pipes that cool down nearly 50 office buildings and other structures. One of those buildings is Chase Field.
“Have you been to a Diamondbacks’ game when it’s 120 [degrees] outside and you walk in and it’s 72 in there? Well that’s us,” said Earl Collins, CEO of Cordia.
Underneath street level, the commercial energy services company is freezing water, melting ice and transporting it to provide air conditioning for Chase Field, the Phoenix Convention Center, hotels, municipal and office buildings throughout downtown.
The cold water is steered underground and brought into individual building’s cooling systems. After doing its job, the now-warm water is then returned to Cordia, which cools and repeats the process 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The company recools the water with an ice storage tank overnight, which is located below the Phoenix Convention Center.
“We make ice when the electricity is cheap [at night] … and then we melt it during the day,” said Jay Zaghloul, regional director of business development and client relations for Cordia’s western division. “We utilize ice storage to reduce our costs and be competitive with our rates to all our customers.”
The company currently has three functioning plants throughout downtown, including one at Chase Field and another at the Phoenix Convention Center. Cordia can store 100,000 tons of ice and more than 27,000 tons of chilled water. The firm is now working on developing a fourth plant to expand its chilled water output by 10,000 tons and serve the University of Arizona’s medical campus buildings downtown and potentially other buildings nearby.
Zaghloul said the firm is currently designing the plant to try and get it online by the spring of 2025. The underground plant is being planned for 7th Street and McKinley Street and Zaghloul estimates it could cost between $40 million and $50 million.
Collins became the firm’s CEO last October when it was spun off from New Jersey-based Clearway Community Energy. Clearway sold its thermal assets, including the system in downtown Phoenix, to private equity firm KKR. From there, Cordia chose Phoenix its headquarters. Its offices are at CityScape at 1 E. Washington Street in Suite 440.
Zaghloul, a holdover from the Clearway days, has been working on the Phoenix energy system since it was developed in 2000 by APS Energy Services, a division of Arizona Public Service. Over the years, the system traded hands to NRG Energy, Clearway and now is under the control of Cordia.
Cordia has services scattered across the country in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Collins said the company has about 350 employees across its office footprint. Cordia has about 37 employees in Phoenix.