COLD DESERT Traditional cell manufacturing is energy intensive, resulting in large NIGHTS: THERMAL amounts of heat dissipated from manufacturing equipment that WATER STORAGE must be removed from the building. This heat removal is achieved by pumping chilled water throughout the entire factory. Conventional chilled water generation consumes an enormous amount of electric power and water, even with high-efficiency chillers. To reduce the economic and energy costs of generating this chilled water, Tesla designed and built a one-of-a-kind chilled water plant precisely tuned to take advantage of the vast daily temperature swings and dry desert air by equipping Gigafactory 1 with a 10M gallon concrete thermal energy storage reservoir. At night, when the ambient air is cool and dry and the factory operates efficiently, it intentionally generates more chilled water than is needed for the manufacturing processes and the excess is stored in the reservoir. Then, during the daytime when the hot desert sun is beaming and causing the factory to operate at low efficiency, the stored cold water is sent throughout the factory to provide all cooling needs. By shifting the generation of chilled water to the night time, the factory is able to operate in “dry mode” so that no water evaporation is required for a greater percentage of time and there is no consumption of water during these periods. This improved design is expected to reduce the factory’s chilled water electrical consumption by as much as 40% and water consumption up to 60%, Aerial view of Gigafactory 1 in the winter. pushing Gigafactory 1 toward its net-zero emissions goals. IMPACT REPORT 29