The Gulf Region is experiencing an unparalleled real estate development boom, and with it, unprecedented demand for air conditioning. The Shams Abu Dhabi development in the United Arab Emirates is a case in point. This $6.9 billion development on lush, green Al Reem Island will soon be home to 55,000 people; 100 skyscrapers; 22,000 residential housing units; retail and social facilities; and a 10.8 million-sq-ft park. With district cooling now the region's preferred building cooling method, Sorouh turned to WM Group to create design and construction documents for the design-build construction of three 40,000-ton chilled-water plants to serve this premier development. Although primary-secondary pumping is used almost exclusively in the UAE, WM Group had a better solution in mind: a variable-volume primary pumping system.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's (NYPH's) renowned Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan is supplied with chilled water and high-pressure steam from a central utilities plant that also serves Cornell University Medical College. Recognizing its year-round need for both thermal and electric power, NYPH in 2003 commissioned WM Group to study the economic and physical feasibility of building a combined heat and power system at the central plant. Such a system would require paralleling with the utility grid, as Con Edison indicated that its substation was under severe short-circuit constraints and unable to accept any fault current contribution from the customer's power-generating equipment.

In 2001, as NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH) was preparing to install a new 120,000-lb/hr boiler and auxiliaries at its Columbia Medical Center boiler plant, the hospital needed to solve a problem: how to rig the new boiler, specified by another consultant, into the boiler room with its very limited access space. The hospital's chilled-water system operations and distribution were also in need of optimization at the time to increase capacity and correct flow problems. NYPH called on WM Group to tackle both these challenges.

In 2002, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) announced plans to establish a temple in Manhattan within two years to meet the needs of its fast-growing congregation of 42,000. When the Church decided to adapt an existing building for this purpose, WM Group was called on to execute a full mechanical, electrical and plumbing renovation of a 40,000-sq-ft area within the structure - on a fast-track schedule. The project required close coordination between architectural, structural and MEPT trades.

The Fiona Stanley Hospital is a new state-of-the art hospital to be constructed by 2013 in Murdoch, Australia, approximately 9 miles south of Perth. As Western Australia's flagship health facility and major trauma center, the 2.15 million-sq-ft hospital will be required to operate in post-disaster conditions. WM Group was chosen to study central energy plant configuration options - to include cooling, heating, thermal storage, power and cogeneration - and recommend a configuration and a plan to implement it that would both ensure secure energy supply and address environmental concerns.