What’s your role at Vahterus?

Since 2010, Vahterus has been providing Plate & Shell Heat Exchangers for building-heat packages manufactured by Preston Phipps for the Canadian Market.

In September 2019, Vahterus supplied PSHE 8/6HH460/1/1 unit, a critical-charge combined ice-rink chiller, to Ultimate Fabrication Inc, located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The unit was commissioned in October 2019 and it has been running as a part of new cooling system for Cabin John Ice Arena in Rockville, Maryland, USA. The Vahterus PSHE Combined Chiller (a chiller with an integrated separator in one shell) was a key component in the upgrade project of the NHL and studio-size ice rinks in the Cabin John Ice Arena.

What is your work history at Vahterus?

Innovative Refrigeration Systems provides turnkey design and building services and Industrial refrigeration systems. Vahterus has been their partner in supplying heat exchangers since 2010. When their customer, United State Cold Storage, wanted to increase its blast freezing capacity in Dallas market, Innovative Refrigeration looked to Vahterus for reliability on performance and delivery. The project was realised in three phases, with the initial systems installed in 2013, and the later expansion in 2014 and 2016.

High operating pressures require premium quality

In 2014, Tampereen Sähkölaitos published a decision to invest in a heating plant to be built in the neighbourhood of Hervanta in Tampere, Finland. The plant is a district heating plant based on fluidized bed technology. The benefits of this technology include the option of using fuels with lower heating value, the most notable of which are timber-based forest processed chips, sawdust and bark. The Hervanta plant produces heat and domestic hot water for about 20,000 people. With the new plant, Tampereen Sähkölaitos wanted first and foremost to reduce the use of natural gas in district heat production and, as a result, also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Heat exchangers reducing greenhouse gas emissions

For a chemical plant in Antwerp, Kapp received an order for two separate Vahterus Plate & Shell Heat Exchangers. The applications for the heat exchangers are not extremely difficult however the end user is very pleased to have found this type of heat exchanger which is completely new to this plant.

Tailored solution

The use of natural gas around the world is growing and in energy production, the traditional oil and coal are expected to be eclipsed by natural gas use in the coming years.

Sokolovská Uhelná is one of the largest producers of electricity from brown coal in the Czech Republic. It has a total annual capacity of around 3 500 GWh, which it transmits to the town of Karlovy Vary and other smaller towns in the region. Sokolovská Uhelná is also a coal mining company, producing thermal coal and chemical products derived from brown coal. The company mines about 6.5 million tons of brown coal each year.

A few years ago, Vahterus visited one of the largest food producers in Kazakhstan. The company was facing a challenge in the deodorization process of its sunflower oil.