26 March 2020
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Michael Boyes of Weatherite Air Conditioning
Weatherite Air Conditioning has supplied a climate control system for a chicken hatchery in Malawi, Africa.
The contract with with EmTech Hatchery Systems includes the design, supply and manufacture of specialist hybrid air handling units featuring a heat reclaim system.
Weatherite Senior Sales & Applications Engineer Michael Boyles 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 fails, then the other fan will ramp up to compensate some of the loss and still offer 75% of design airflow.
Weatherite delivered the units six weeks after order and has 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 says it is also in talks aimed at securing further business in Islamabad and Poland.
