Technical Tours

Thursday, March 2, 2023
Breakfast and Pre-Tour Briefing: 7:30 am-9:00 am
Pre-registration is required for tours and space is limited.
Cost: $75 per person.
Participants will have the opportunity to visit either the Parkland Health and Hospital System's Central Utility Plant, the DFW Airport Central Utility Plant OR the Gaylord Texan Utility Plant. Tours are subject to change.

Tour A - Parkland Health and Hospital System's Central Utility Plant

Parkland Health and Hospital System’s Central Utility Plant and then drop participants at Dallas Love Field Terminals (around 11:15 am) for those that are flying out and then return to the Gaylord Hotel (around noon).

Tour B - DFW Airport Central Utility Plant

DFW Airport Central Utility Plant and then drop participants at DFW Airport Terminals (around 11:00 am) for those that are flying out and then return to the Gaylord Hotel Hotel (around noon).

Tour C - Gaylord Texan Central Utility Plant

This tour does not offer transportation to an airport.

The Parkland Health and Hospital System’s Central Utility Plant (CUP) provides highly efficient utilities (steam, chilled water, heating water, fire water, domestic water, softened water, emergency power) to the 2.5-million square foot Parkland Hospital Campus.

The chiller plant consists of five 2,750-ton high efficiency water cooled chillers with variable frequency drives and five 8,250 GPM cooling towers and includes 217,000 gallons of above-ground water storage capacity. The boiler plant includes six natural gas boilers with a nominal input of 39,900 MBTU/H and nominal output of 32,893 MBTU/H at an 83% efficiency with economizers. The plant can supply the hospital and surrounding buildings with up to 192,000 LB/H of steam and 98,400 MBTU/H of hot water.

Located within the heart of DFW Airport, the Energy Plaza Central Utility Plant provides cooling and heating services to approximately 7,000,000 square feet of space including terminals, hotels, and other support facilities. The cooling system is comprised of 6-5,500-ton York OM Titan chillers and a 90,000 ton-hr low temperature thermal storage tank. The heating system is supplied by 4-33,000 lbs/hr Babcock and Wilcox steam boilers and 1-60,000 lbs/hr Victory steam boiler. In addition, the system provides heating and cooling to the terminal jet bridges and docked planes with the use of 5-1,350-ton York YK chillers and heat exchangers. Lastly, the facility is used to monitor and control other Airport public utilities such as potable water and sewer.

The central utility plant at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center provides heating and cooling to the large resort and its convention center. To cool the resort there are four chillers with a total of 8,000 tons of capacity with four cooling towers. The hot water loop has four hot water boilers that provide heating. The facility also has three emergency generators that each can provide two MW of electricity if needed.