Hamilton Tafe

 Airconditioning Industries was contracted to supply and install a novel two-rotor, intercooled, solar desiccant cooling system for airconditioning commercial kitchens at the TAFE Hamilton Campus. The once-through airconditioning system preconditions 2 x 2100 l/s of fresh air, with a cooling capacity of approximately 80kW. Heat for regenerating the desiccant wheel is obtained from 400m2 of flat plate solar collectors.

Airconditioning Industries Pty Ltd constructed the system including replacement of the 2 cooling towers and installation of a new trend BMS system to control the new and existing plant.

Key construction issues included (i) sourcing of 100mm thick desiccant wheels, (ii) shrinking the air handling units into the available space in the plant room and (iii) construction of a solar thermal buffer tank that was sufficiently wide to spread the load across the floor of the plant room and yet be sufficiently tall to achieve good thermal stratification.