Keeping hot water busbar enclosures cool

Rycroft is a leading manufacturer of systems to produce hot water for large and diverse applications such as schools and hospitals: they needed a special cooled busbar enclosure, so turned to Rittal

Rycroft, a member of the Baxi group of companies, is a leading manufacturer of systems to produce hot water for large and diverse applications such as schools, hotels, hospitals, public buildings and offshore installations.

The systems, can use either a water storage tank, or can use a heat exchanger principle with hot water, steam, or electricity as a primary heat source.

With such a wide range of applications and heat outputs, from 3kW to 1.5MW, Rycroft sought an enclosure supplier who could not only satisfy their very diverse electrical requirements but also offer solutions to the varying enclosure cooling problems.

For a number of years their chosen supplier of enclosures has been Rittal who are able to offer wall mounting as well as floor-standing enclosures and recently the revolutionary TS 8 enclosure system, which offers limitless possibilities, resulting from its symmetrical frame and two mounting levels on each frame member.

To suit the wide range of cooling requirements for the range of products Rycroft produce, Rittal are in a position to offer everything from a standard fan and filter system through heat exchangers to process chillers.

Recently Rycroft required a power distribution system that would cost the minimum to produce, was fast to assemble and had no material wastage, often an issue with traditional copper busbar systems.

Rycroft approached Rittal who offered the PLS range which satisfied the criteria as it is fast to assemble, there is no copper to cut, no drilling, no bending and zero wastage.

A number of motor circuit breaker starters had to be incorporated into this control panel and the 800 amp PLS system allowed these to be mounted directly onto the busbar using component adaptors that were delivered pre-wired, with the insulation already stripped back.

This meant that fitting the starters was achieved in seconds by clipping the starter onto the component adaptor, connecting the pre-wired cables into the starter and finally 'hooking' the component adaptor onto the busbar.

This was far easier than the conventional method of mounting onto a DIN rail and wiring starters individually.

Should Rycroft need to extend the busbar system in the future this will be a simple matter using the Rittal connection plates instead of the conventional specially manufactured 'fish-plate' connections.

Graham Hunter, Electrical and Installation Design Manager said "Our applications and requirement are very diverse and demanding as we supply hot water systems to many and varied sectors of industry.

Consequently we have to be confident that our suppliers can meet our special requirements, whatever they may be.

Rittal provide the solutions and enable us to satisfy our customers.".

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