Frese­nius Kabi is a market leader in clin­ical nutri­tion, infu­sion therapy and medical tech­nology, with around 1,100 people employed at its Swedish loca­tions. The site in Uppsala covers almost 10,000 square meters of produc­tion and labo­ra­tory space and is home to one of the world’s most modern facil­i­ties for the produc­tion of intra­venous nutri­tion solu­tions.

“A stop­page would cost hundreds of thou­sands of euros”

Christer Flood has worked as a facility manager at Frese­nius Kabi for over 20 years. He manages projects that opti­mize real estate oper­a­tions and produc­tion processes – including the retrofit project in Uppsala involving over 150 fans from ebm-papst. This is because the company contin­u­ously invests in new tech­nolo­gies to improve its climate foot­print.

Besides the main­te­nance costs of the belt-driven fans, the main issues were effi­ciency and redun­dancy.

Christer Flood, facility manager at Frese­nius Kabi

The retrofit started in 2017 with the desire to replace older belt-driven fans with a modern, energy-effi­cient and reli­able fan solu­tion. “There were three main reasons why we started such an exten­sive modern­iza­tion project,” explains Christer Flood. “Besides the main­te­nance costs of the belt-driven fans, the main issues were effi­ciency and redun­dancy. This is because our site oper­ates around the clock 7 days a week, and we need to be able safe­guard this at all times. An unplanned stop­page costs us hundreds of thou­sands of euros every hour.”

More than 150 fans for 15 FanGrids

An ideal possible new solu­tion was a FanGrid, where several fans are stacked next to and on top of each other and oper­ated in parallel. The fan chosen by Frese­nius Kabi’s installer Bravida was a RadiPac in cube design, which impressed Bravida with its compact dimen­sions and high level of effi­ciency. What’s more, the drive and control elec­tronics were right on board, which simpli­fied instal­la­tion on site. Thanks to the MODBUS inter­face, Frese­nius Kabi has access to the data of each indi­vidual fan in the FanGrid.

In Uppsala, 1 to 2 redun­dant fans were installed per FanGrid – in a total of more than 150 in 15 FanGrids. “We wanted to ensure 20 percent excess redun­dancy, which would allow us to flex­ibly ramp up the fans as needed and perform planned shut­downs without inter­rupting produc­tion,” explains Christer Flood.

“Despite the addi­tional redun­dancy, we have achieved signif­i­cant energy savings of 20-30 percent. And they could be even higher. The solu­tion has been so successful that there has even been interest in the project at group level. After all, Frese­nius has many facto­ries around the world.”

Moving into the future with a retrofit

Christer Flood has worked closely with Johan Rode­strand, the project manager at Bravida in Linköping, since the project began in 2017. “For me, the FanGrid is the ideal solu­tion and rightly some­thing of a stan­dard in the retrofit sector. The redun­dancy is partic­u­larly worth high­lighting for projects like the one with Christer.”

For me, the FanGrid is the ideal solu­tion and rightly some­thing of a stan­dard in the retrofit sector.

Johan Rode­strand, project manager at Bravida Linköping

The flex­i­bility of the FanGrid is also partic­u­larly impor­tant: “It simply puts customers in a good posi­tion for the future because capacity can be increased or reduced as needed.” At Frese­nius Kabi, Bravida has defi­nitely built for the future. The company has already prepared for increased demand and planned addi­tional space into the FanGrid. “This makes our work easier as it only takes a few hours to install new fans, and removal is even faster,” explains Johan Rode­strand.

He also praises Thomas Köhlmark, Tech­nical Support Engi­neer at ebm-papst in Järfälla, for his support: “I like ebm-papst’s open­ness and curiosity when it comes to how solu­tions work in prac­tice. Over the years, there are always improve­ments that make what is already a very good solu­tion even better. Getting posi­tive feed­back on our sugges­tions from the field is valu­able and very much appre­ci­ated by us as installers!”