www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za RACA Journal I July 2024 33
Project
The hot water is connected to the red ports of the manifold inside the manifold box . The benefit is that each hot point has a tap that can be shut in a scenario where some fixture has a leak . This allows the maintenance team to isolate an individual tap , and the rest of the plumbing points still have hot and cold water while maintenance is done . Pre-insulated Multilayer PEX piping was used due to high durability at its high temperature and pressure .
Potable cold water : From the insulated trench , cold potable water is tee-ed off to the cold water manifold in the manifold box . The cold water manifold can be seen in blue in the manifold box .
The benefit is that each cold point has a tap that can be shut in a scenario where some fixture has a leak . This allows the maintenance team to isolate an individual tap , and the rest of the plumbing points still have cold water while maintenance is done . Multilayer PEX piping was used due to high durability at its high temperature and pressure .
The heart of the integrated system is the PLC control system . The control system allows the system to run and make logical decisions for itself based on the requirements of the lodge . The control system controls all pumps , valves , heat pumps and gas boilers and measures all required temperatures .
The control system helps the lodge save a large amount of energy . It with the Victron PV system , and can turn off non-essential heating and cooling loads as well as heat pumps when limited energy is available , without compromising the guest experience .
The control system has remote monitoring and remote programming capabilities , allowing the maintanance team to control the system from any smart device . The engineers at Essensia Heating and Cooling Systems can also monitor the system and make adjustmants to the parameters of the system from any smart device . The control system sends alarms to all parties if there is a fault in the system , such as if gas botttles are empty for the backup gas boilers or if a heat pump has an error . This allows the maintenance team of the lodge to rectify any potential issues and ensures that guests have the ultimate experience . The physical control system , which is housed in the plantroom , can be seen in the following picture :
The plant summary can be seen below :
Colin Holden from Monwana viewing the PLC control system home screen .
Plant summary of the PLC control system .
www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za RACA Journal I July 2024 33