Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd has won a contract with EmTech Hatchery Systems to supply a package AHU for a chicken hatchery in Malawi, Africa.
The contract includes the design, supply and manufacture of specialist hybrid units which have recently been installed and further increased Weatherite’s reputation for efficiency and reliability.
The systems have been fitted with an economic heat reclaim system and built into an innovative hybrid construction, typical of the company’s innovative design capability.
Michael Boyles, pictured, said: “In a hatchery, adequate climate control is crucial for good hatchability, chick quality and bio-security. Embryos and chicks need sufficient fresh air, the right environmental temperature and an adjusted humidity level.
“Each hatchery has different prevailing air conditions depending on country and location and therefore systems often need to be custom-made.
“Providing the correct air management flow within these hatcheries can also be costly for a number of reasons, especially with regard to energy usage and the cost implications associated with running such systems. Weatherite’s hybrid solution provides a more economical solution; rather than having two boxes to transport and connect pipework on-site, which would almost double costs, we developed this solution where pipework and interconnecting services are connected internally in one box and shipped in a single container. Connecting the system on-site is easier and far less expensive, and also ensures that all our factory quality control procedures are adhered to.”
The unit has a 100KW gas boiler system installed within the plantroom side of the unit to generate hot water and supplies the LPHW coil within the AHU via run & standby pump sets. The hot water can also be used within the hatchery incubation system and the returning water from the incubators is then used to feed the heat recovery coil within the AHU. This set up offers the customer full flexibility and energy efficiency diverting the LPHW feed to wherever the demand is required and then recovered for heating the process air.
The chilled water coil is linked to run and standby circulating pumps within the plantroom and has external flanged connections for easy site connection to the existing water chillers.
The unit also offers some redundancy by having twin supply fans with EC motor technology. If one fan happens to fail, then the other fan will ramp up to compensate some of the loss and still offer 75% of design airflow.
Weatherite delivered the units just six weeks after order and have since received further orders from EmTech for systems to be designed and manufactured at Hatcheries in Dalton, Yorkshire and the Aviagen Hatchery in Stratford. The company is in talks with securing further new business in Islamabad and Poland.
