Cutting edge solution to dairy heat management

Although the integrated monitoring is no longer provided by CES for these systems, we are proud to continue providing top quality servicing and repair to existing units, backed by integral solutions powered by the Loxone platform.

The Xchanger system cools milk in a dairy by removing the heat and dumping it into buffer storage tanks (large cylinders of water) – effectively a heat pump in reverse. The heat is then transferred into parlours via blow airs (essentially a heating fan) or sent to local homes for underfloor heating and central heating systems. As engineers, we’re always interested in breaking down the systems we install and developing methods to further improve the installations for the end user. Very early on we identified that, as brilliant as the Xchanger technology is, it lacks functionality such as remote access and heating control.

So, as we often do, we turned to Loxone for an automated solution.

Firstly, our friends at Xchanger were complaining of the lack of remote maintenance available – with contracts up to 300 miles away from the Shropshire base, it was important that any faults or errors identified by the Xchanger could be immediately diagnosed and resolved, preferably remotely.

This one was a simple fix. Each heat pump contains an alarm call which was already being used for a local beacon to alert farm managers of issues. We just used the same signal to send a push notification in the Loxone app and an email to the Xchanger head office.

The Xchanger uses soft and hard alarms. The soft alarms reset themselves, while hard alarms need a manual reset – we were able to setup an additional email notification to alert when the alarm was reset, allowing the engineers to determine how serious the actual fault in question was.

Secondly, it is vital that users can accurately see energy consumption and generation. These are tallied up using approved consumption meters, but by supplying comms-ready consumption meters we can take a pulsed output and use the Loxone software to make calculations. Using the Loxone app, the Xchanger team can now instantly see the power used in real-time at any site anywhere in the world, along with the all-important total heat produced.

Finally heating and cooling circuits are now managed by powerful Loxone software, offering thousands of setups and opportunities to the Xchanger team ranging from simple calls to turning a cooling pump on remotely when the milk parlour needs automated heat dumping.

These setups are very much site-dependant, but with the vast range of relays and inputs available on the Loxone miniserver, most needs are met. Loxone’s plug and play extensions sit nicely inside existing enclosures for when more options are needed.

Where needed, farm owners are also given user-specific applications to help them to remotely manage their heating circuits. This allows them to heat the parlour before milking on a frosty morning or boost the underfloor heating for an extra hour, all from their smart phones.