Watkins Hire was put to the test when it supplied a cooling system for a data centre in Stockton on Tees An award winning data centre, Wynyard Data Centre in Stockton on Tees is set to become one of Europe’s largest facilities, once fully commissioned later this year.  It is also billed as an ‘environmentally friendly’ data centre thanks to its innovative cooling system which uses large volumes of filtered air from outside the building to service its four data halls, all of which went live this year. 

Balfour Beatty Engineering Services was the contractor tasked with installing and commissioning the seven 1371 kW chillers needed to provide cooling for the hall that is now fully operational at Wynyard and testing that the system worked was an essential element of the commissioning process.

Explains Graham Ward from Balfour Beatty Engineering Services: “We had around nine mega watt of chiller to commission within a two-week programme but no heat load with which to test them.  We had previously carried out testing at other sites by running hot water through the system using a heat exchanger linked to an existing boiler but because of the time constraints we wanted a simpler and faster testing solution.  We decided that heating the system directly using a temporary boiler could work but because it was the first time we’d ever tried it we knew we’d need to bring in experts to help design the test  - and that’s where Watkins Hire came in.”

Balfour Beatty Engineering Services put the job out to tender and each of the tendering companies devised a different approach to fulfilling the brief, but the simplicity, precision and fuel efficiency of the Watkins Hire solution made it the preferred option.
The Watkins Hire team made several visits to site to help develop the methodology and fully design the specification for the test rig. 

Explains Chris Easterlow from Watkins Hire: “What the test required was for the water within the cooling system to be maintained at a constant level throughout the test period and it had to be accurate to within plus or minus two degrees. We addressed this by providing two 1.2 mega watt boilers linked to a sequential starting control panel, which we specifically designed for the application.  This meant that the water temperature was constantly and accurately monitored and the boiler was automatically switched on or off if the water temperature began to dip below or rise above the strict parameters set for the test.”
The monitoring and automatic control of the temporary boilers was operated by a sequential control device located in the water being used to test the system.  This was linked to sequential control box mounted on the boilers themselves, offering a technologically advanced but operationally simple solution.

Having designed the solution and agreed in advance where the temporary hire boilers would be sited, Watkins Hire installed the equipment within just three days, including testing of the sequential control device and all the pipework.  As the boilers were only operational on an ‘as needed’ basis, the Watkins Hire solution offered the contractor considerable cost savings on fuel and the efficiency of the test methodology enabled Balfour Beatty Engineering Solutions to complete the testing and commissioning process a week ahead of schedule.

Graham Ward adds: “This was an experimental means of testing the cooling system: we were confident it would work but the input of Watkins Hire’s specialist expertise was invaluable in delivering a successful solution.  The cooling equipment we were testing is highly sensitive, as is the environment in which it sits so there could be no room for error or delays.  Watkins Hire were able both to follow our brief and advise us, enabling us to save both time and money on the project.”