Utility & Infrastructure
SoCal Gas Pico Rivera Chiller Replacement
Chiller swap and condenser water optimization for SoCal Gas.
Client
Southern California Gas Company
Location
Pico Rivera, CA
Service Line
The Pico Rivera base is where SoCalGas runs itself — facilities, training, and a row of operational departments, all headquartered on one campus. When the cooling plant needs surgery, you can’t send everyone home while you work.
Athena held a three-year Master Services Agreement with Southern California Gas, and under it we handled the design-build replacement of two chillers at the Pico Rivera base. The job started with demolition: pull and haul off the two existing machines, then drop two new ones into their place — a 150-ton Trane and a 150-ton Broad gas-fired absorption chiller, matched to the way the plant was already built. Supporting scope ran the length of the mechanical room — new isolation pads, floor sinks, extended concrete pads, VFDs, and pumps.
Then there’s the Broad. Broad absorption chillers aren’t something most mechanical contractors will quote, let alone install — they’re a specialized machine, gas-fired rather than the standard electric unit, and they take a crew that knows what it’s looking at. (There’s also a certain rightness to a gas utility running one.) Athena specs and self-installs the equipment other shops walk away from. That’s not a small thing on a campus that can’t afford a learning curve in its plant room.
And we did all of it without taking the building down”
And we did all of it without taking the building down. The base stayed fully operational through demolition and installation — no shutdown, no scramble, for a headquarters that doesn’t get to pause.
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