Airedale welcomes Uruguayan visitors
6th November 2014
UK: Airedale International, a large exporter of cooling products, recently welcomed visitors from Uruguay to its training academy in Leeds.
The visiting group included representatives from Airedale’s Montevideo-based business partner Improtel. Managing director, Jose Maria de la Fuente was accompanied by Pablo Gutierrez from government-owned national telecom provider ANTEL.
The visit was the latest in a series over the course of the last few years which have provided both Improtel and ANTEL with opportunities for training at Airedale’s training school. Amongst other courses, this has included Part 3 Design Principles, an advanced air conditioning syllabus which covers design requirements, equipment selection and energy efficiency and environmental considerations.
Jose Maria de la Fuente and Pablo Gutierrez were also present to witness test the Airedale AlphaCool precision air conditioning (PAC) system which forms part of the latest order from ANTEL. With the capacity to test chillers up to 1.4MW and PAC units up to 250kW the Airedale R&D test facility is believed to be the largest of its kind within northern Europe.
With its significant international installed base, Airedale has vast experience of designing systems to meet the demands of extremes of temperature and humidity associated with different geographical locations. This often also means meeting different electrical supply specifications even within individual countries like Uruguay which operates on both 220V/50Hz and 400V/50Hz supplies. Outside ambient temperatures in Uruguay can range from 0°C to 42°C with 100% humidity in winter, calling for sophisticated systems and controls which can adjust to varying conditions; in Uruguay critical facilities will also be designed for minimum N+1 or N+N redundancy to ensure system uptime is maximised and service levels maintained. (N+1 redundancy will have one unit operating in standby, for example four units running and one in standby; N+N provides far higher redundancy in that the same number of units are available in standby, for example four units running and four in standby.)
Despite the global economic turbulence of recent years and the financial crisis which has hit parts of South America, particularly Argentina, Uruguay has continued to invest in its IT and communications infrastructure – a key government objective. Whilst general elections are due in 2015, Airedale is optimistic that this commitment to investment will be maintained.
