CONTROLLER CHALLENGES The biggest challenge during the project was linking the controls of the digital variable multi system to the direct expansion air-handling units
Photo by: Fourways Airconditioning
Johannesburg-based air-conditioning solutions provider Fourways Airconditioning is supplying heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment to private hospital chain Netcare’s Polokwane hospital, in Limpopo.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2015.
Fourways Airconditioning export manager and sales engineer Christo Schlechter tells Engineering News that the company presented its solutions to Netcare in early 2013 and was awarded the tender for this project in December that same year.
The company was contracted to supply all the HVAC equipment for the hospital, including the theatre rooms. The scope of supply also included high-temperature digital variable multisystem (DVM) hydro units, which use recovered heat from the DVM system to heat the domestic water to 80 ºC.
“The biggest challenge was linking the controls of the DVM system we supplied to the direct expansion (DX) air-handling units (AHUs), supplied by a third party, for all the theatre rooms, which included the laminar flow units.
Consulting engineering firm Spoormaker contracted Pretoria-based Integration Control & Electrical Solutions (ICES) to tackle the challenge. After numerous meetings of Spoormaker, ICES and HVAC systems manufacturer Samsung, ICES was able to write control logic, which Samsung approved. The control panels for the DVM and DX AHU systems are being manufactured by ICES and sustainable energy solutions developer and supplier Voltas Technologies respectively.
Schlechter says this has been the first project in South Africa where Fourways Airconditioning used the simultaneous cooling and heating heat recovery system manufactured by Samsung to heat the domestic water. This system is specifically significant as it uses recovered heat from the cooling cycle to heat water to 80 ºC, which is a prerequisite for hospital projects. This optimises energy efficiency and provides significant energy savings.
“Although we have done numerous projects linking DVM systems to DX AHU, this was the first time it has been done in theatre room units. Once this project is successfully completed, it will be the benchmark for all future Netcare hospital projects,” he concludes.