SFO Harvey Milk Terminal 1 Boarding Area B

The Harvey Milk Terminal 1 Boarding Area B (BAB) at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) was a multi-year, ground-up construction project that fully replaced SFO’s original Terminal 1. After success working on SFO’s Terminal 3, Cupertino Electric was hired for its design-build services and ability to deliver complex airport projects on-schedule.

To prepare for the main project while Terminal 1 was being built, CEI installed power for a temporary but fully functional Interim Boarding Area B (IBAB) facility. The IBAB had nine aircraft gates and an associated security checkpoint that bore much of the traffic while Terminal 1 was under construction. This portion of the project also included modifications to the adjacent Boarding Area C.

CEI teams worked on the Harvey Milk Terminal 1 project over the course of three phases. Cupertino Electric’s public infrastructure, solar and low voltage teams installed systems throughout the 500,000-square-foot project.

The scope of work included electrical systems, LED lighting, the complete fire alarm system and EFSO System. The updated terminal features a 12-kV distribution with three double-ended substations, six 400-kW distribution power systems for aircraft power, two emergency back-up generators (a 1,250kW and a 500kW), seven uninterrupted power supplies (UPS), 29 Advance Visual Docking Guidance System (AVDGS) units for aircraft docking and a Ground Service Equipment (GSE) charging system.

CEI’s Renewables Team has performed work on a three-phase project (slated to be complete by the end of 2020) that includes a 1.2-MWDC rooftop array consisting of nearly 3,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels.

When the main project concluded in July 2019, CEI’s public infrastructure team was already planning the next SFO project, the International Terminal. In March 2021, SFO's Harvey Milk Terminal 1 was awarded the Fitewel "Best in Building Health® 2021" award from the Center for Active Design. In early-2022, the terminal became the first airport terminal in the world to achieve LEED v4 Platinum Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).