Secure I.T. Environments completes live AHU upgrade for Thurrock Community Hospital

Secure I.T. Environments has completed an Air Handling Unit (AHU) upgrade project for Thurrock Hospital, part of Essex Partnership University NHS Trust (EPUT).  The project was instigated as part of the Trust’s desire to move to more energy efficient units as those in the data centre reach end of life, having been installed with the original data centre designed and built by Secure I.T. Environments in 2009.

Secure I.T. Environments undertook all aspects of the project, offering a full turnkey solution, covering the supply, installation, commissioning, and testing of new units, as well as the disposal of all replaced equipment at the site.

Run as a two-phase project, Secure I.T. Environments replaced two AHU units at a time, with an emphasis on ensuring that data centre services to the hospital would be unaffected with no downtime or impact on performance.  The old AHUs were replaced with much more efficient FlaktGroup Direct Expansion Multi-DENCO® air-cooled units, with low noise external condensers.  All units were fitted with water detection, air flow monitoring, temperature and energy monitoring sensors.  New Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) panels were also fitted, as well as other related electrical upgrades completed.   The final touch was the completion of flooring modifications and repairs to ensure the new AHUs fitted into the existing data centre raised access flooring.

Following the completion of this work, Secure I.T. Environments was asked to upgrade all original data centre internal lighting with new LED energy efficient lights.  The Thurrock Hospital data centre has been maintained by Secure I.T. Environments since 2009, covering fire suppression, EMS, room checks and cooling solutions.

Steve Senter, Technical Infrastructure Manager at EPUT ICT Services, said, “As ever, Secure I.T. Environments has done an excellent job of ensuring our data centres are as efficient as possible, performing all upgrades with no disruption to our operations and consideration for all those working at and using the hospital.”

Chris Wellfair, Projects Director at Secure I.T. Environments, added, “Replacing the AHU units in such a critical environment as a hospital data centre has to be handled with care, to ensure that it does not impact the provision of patient services. When the time comes to undertake this work, we take great care to ensure there is minimal disruption, allowing clients to quickly reap the rewards of a much more energy efficient cooling system, which is so important in today’s climate of much hotter summers and rising energy costs.”