System simulates Tutu Center's new geothermal loop During the
summer of 2005, The General Theological Seminary began
renovating three of its buildings in New York's historic Chelsea
neighborhood to house The Desmond Tutu Center, which includes a
60-room hotel, a restaurant, and a conference center. Wanting a
low-cost, environmentally friendly heating-and-cooling system,
seminary leaders elected to convert the existing fossil-fuel-
fired system to what would become the Northeast's largest
geothermal system. In August 2007, the first seven of 20
standing-column wells were drilled. Needing a way to provide
chilled water to new heat pumps until the geothermal wells were
completed — in essence, to simulate two geothermal wells that
would work with the system's new equipment — without disrupting
the center's guests or construction, the seminary turned to
Aggreko, provider of rental-power, temperature-control, and oil-
free-compressed-air solutions. The job required large chillers,
but nearly all of the on-site space