CIAT AHUs for Seagreen wind farm project

Air handling units from CIAT are managing temperature and humidity in the transformer rooms for all the electrical substations at the world's deepest offshore wind farm project.

The Seagreen project in the North Sea, which is also Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, has installed six ClimaCIAT AirTech AHUs, two units in each of the three substation buildings, to control the heat generated by the conversion of power up to 400kV for use by the national electricity grid.

The AHUs are installed in a ‘run and standby’ set-up where three run for a week then are swapped for the other three. This ensures standby units are always available in the event of an outage, and that all units have equal run-time to maximise working life.

The modular ClimaCIAT AHUs are equipped with high-grade filters to help support indoor air quality to maintain optimum year-round climate conditions to ensure the transformers operate at peak efficiency. CIAT supplied two matched condensing units per AHU.

Electricity generated by the Seagreen turbines is transferred to landfall at Carnoustie through subsea export cables. It is then transmitted to this new substation at Tealing through 19km-long underground cables

“We had no issues with the AHUs,” said Chris McCall, Operations Director for MHSL Services, the contractor for the project. “CIAT’s equipment came in three or four sections, which we bolted together and added the controls. The process was fairly straightforward. I have used CIAT on many occasions in the past and found their products to be second to none. They are very reliable and withstand the test of time.”