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Mitsubishi chases new opportunities
Earlier this year HVR was able to visit the location of Mitubishi’s MEHITS facility nestled below the Dolomites in northern Italy. The name refers to the integrated brands of DeLclima, Climaveneta and RC Group which were acquired by Mitsubishi three years ago
T
his was an opportunity for the brands to stand before the media for the first time as an integrated company under the MEHITS name,
and to show off not only its state-of-the-art facilities, but also two stand-out applications in spectacular ancient Venetian buildings.
With the acquisition of the DeLclima brands, Mitsubishi is on a quest to expand beyond its core market of supplying VRF and precision air conditioning, and the northern Italy facility shows just how serious the group is about this. MEHITS boasts a total of seven factories in Italy
all with their own R&D and testing labs which also serve the UK market, and employs a significant 1,700 people across the globe.
The new testing lab has the ability to test product to the most extreme of conditions. This facility is
situated adjacent to a production plant which manufactures medium to large capacity chillers – a great source of excitement for the company according to Mauro Montello, sales and marketing general manager. The expertise for MEHITS in comfort applications,
providing hydronic systems for hotels, offices, sports facilities and theatres, is an area in which Mitsubishi wants to extend its influence with further plans to delve deeper into the applications involving IT and process. From a UK perspective, Richard Venga, Mitsubishi senior product manager, says the acquisition is significant. Very important to the group is the concept of kaizen (meaning change for better) – a concept that is built into the Japanese mentality and embraced by Mitsubishi through its
focus on training and customer facing practices. A direct-to-market approach means everyone
selling product is employed by the manufacturer and this means sales specialists, who had been part of the Climaventa brand are now working in the UK with direct access to the factories to help fulfil customers’ specific requirements. All of this is supported by the Green Gateway Programme – Mitsubishi’s response to the challenge of reducing energy consumption in building services. The visit included a tour of the production facilities; a demonstration of the testing lab capabilities; and a visit to two historical Venetian sites – the La Fenice Theatre (See sidebar below) and the exclusive Fondaco dei Tedesch shopping centre, a medieval building constructed in 1228 on Venice’s Grand Canal.
CURTAIN OPENS ON STATE-OF-THE-ART HVAC SYSTEM
mechanical HVAC system. The biggest challenge was to recreate a building which looked just like the theatre had before it burnt down, but at the same time turn it into a state-of-the-art theatre. The HVAC system was designed to condition the
A
entire theatre complex, maintaining excellent comfort conditions throughout the year. It is based on:
• A central cooling plant based on two air cooled chillers for total cooling capacity of 1,680kW located in the roof of the north wing complex. The chillers operate all year round and are equipped with a heat recovery system that recovers heat for domestic hot water either for post heating or as
fter it was destroyed by fire in 1996, the La Fenice Theatre – one of Venice’s most historical buildings – required a new
first stage before gas boilers. • A central heating plant made up of three high efficiency boilers with a total capacity of 2,670kWt, able to meet the total thermal and domestic hot water production needs located in the basement.
•16 AHUs with free cooling function, located mainly on the ceiling above the main hall and in other areas to serve specific areas such as the foyer and adjoining rooms. • A control room located in the north wing from where all components can be managed synergistically to ensure ideal comfort with optimum performances
is achieved throughout the year. In a city like Venice where the
external level of measurable night- time noise is on average about 25dB(A), the units were chosen with specific focus on the acoustic aspect. The largest number of AHUs are
located in the ceiling above the house. This is where the air intake extractor connected to the AHUs of the stalls, boxes and orchestra pit is also inserted. Particular steps were taken to soundproof the machines using, in addition to the classic silencers in line in the ducts, special acoustic
insulation technologies such as anti-vibration devices to support the machines.
Air conditioning
www.heatingandventilating.net
June 2019
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