Ventilation & Cooling

Increasing Demand For Variable-speed Drives
 

- Simone Liedtke

Following the successful commissioning of two MoviDrive B ventilation and air conditioning variable-speed drives (VSDs) at an underground mine in the North West, in South Africa, drive engineering specialist SEW-Eurodrive South Africa (SA) will commission an additional four of its MoviDrive B drives early next year, once the project planning phase has been completed.

The project, inclusive of planning, installation and commissioning, should take about four months to complete.

La Cock further states that the reason for installing a drive in any application is to enhance control.

He cites that the North West underground mining project, where the building system incorporates a programmable logic controller to feed data to the SEW VSDs, can use this data to determine whether to open or close the application to increase or decrease ventilation and flow of cool air.

As an additional offering to the industry, the company offers its LTP-B Eco heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) drive – which was launched at last year’s Electra Mining exhibition, in September. The drive is an example of how SEW-Eurodrive aims to respond to the growing demand for a product that meets specific customer requirements in the ventilation and cooling industry, including that of mining.

SEW-Eurodrive SA national sales manager Norman Maleka explains that fans ensure the flow of clean air underground, so that activities such as excavation may continue unabated.