The world's biggest printing plant is operated by News International, publishers of The Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and the Sun newspapers and owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
The £650 million investment features 12 state-of-the-art colour printing presses, which cover an area the size of around 13 football pitches. As part of the project a complete compressed air solution, which included a dedicated moisture free air system for the sophisticated Agfa computer-to-plate (CTP) presses, was designed, supplied and installed by Airchannel.
The Agfa CTP system cuts cost and time by eliminating the film step while improving production speed and print quality. To establish the moisture free system Airchannel supplied three desiccant dryers fitted with dewpoint dependent switching; each of which has a dedicated air receiver and features smooth-bore aluminium pipework.
Using dryers significantly decreases the potential for breakdowns, which avoids the impact on production of downtime as well as reducing maintenance and repair costs.
All 645 pneumatic and isolation valves were tagged and identified onto both the compressor plant room and pipework schematic drawings.
The new plant brought the end to an era with the purpose built facility at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire taking over from the company’s Wapping site in east London, which itself revolutionised the industry in the 1980s.
As well as being the biggest, it is one of the most efficient printing sites with the ability to print some 70,000 full colour newspapers every hour, which is more than twice as many when compared to Wapping, where it was around 30,000 per hour.
Airchannel completed the installation in two phases, beginning with the supply of 10 compressors, 10 refrigeration dryers, 20 receivers and a complete condensation management system along with 150 metres of exhaust ducting.
To ensure a clear development process was followed, a series of 120 working drawings were produced to support the installation.
The second phase involved the supply and installation of over seven kilometres (around 4.5 miles) of pipework to take the compressed air around the building. Working closely with Skanska SRW, the site mechanical and electrical (M&E) contractor, this was designed by Airchannel engineers to ensure a smooth flow of air and avoid any drop in pressure.
The system is linked to a HPC SIGMA Air Manager that accurately monitors, records and controls the entire installation ensuring that energy costs and power consumption are minimised.
And with the increased concerns over environmental impact from energy consumption, this also assists the new plant to significantly reduce its carbon emissions footprint.
Mark Rhodes, Skanska’s project manager, commented: “We appointed Airchannel to handle the entire compressed air installation on this prestigious contract as the company has the resources and expertise to design and fit an energy efficient solution on time and within budget.
“It is a demanding operation but Airchannel has ensured the new system is reliable and fully meets the needs of the huge site. As well as delivering running cost benefits it also significantly reduces the carbon emissions and environmental impact of the plant, which were important aspects to incorporate.”
With two compressor plant rooms, each featuring one variable and four-fixed speed rotary screw compressors, along with five dryers and 10 receivers, a total air capacity of 256 cubic metres is delivered at 10.5 Barg
The DSD compressors installed feature a number of technical benefits, such as both the drive motor and air end operate at the same low speed, for direct coupling of the drive and compression units, which provides significant energy savings.
Airchannel has also been appointed to provide a full on-going support service and a complete maintenance solution to ensure that the high-tech presses keep the international news flowing at full speed.
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