CAIRNGORM MOUNTAIN

The system is required to remotely control and monitor any function in any part of the installation including remote access, where control and monitoring can be carried out over the internet or mobile phone.

​The system includes the control of space heating, air circulation, air quality, water, sewage and fire. 

We were requested to utilise the original hardware, wiring and control gear where possible and so, a PLC and HMI system of control was designed to be retro-fitted and integrated with the existing components. 

The installation consists of two main buildings at the bottom of the funicular railway and one building at the top. With the old system of control, the engineers were required to manually switch various functions from a number of control panels within any one of the buildings. This resulted in a system that was highly inefficient in terms of energy and operation. 

With nearly 2 kilometres of distance and 462m of height between top and bottom stations, it took up a vast amount of the site engineers’ time to operate. This manual process of control resulted in staff and customers experiencing extremes of temperature due to heaters and air circulation systems not being operated automatically and switched on and off at the request of staff. 

The main space heating systems in place are stepped heater banks and with no automatic system of control, these were switched on and off on full load, resulting in very poor temperature regulation and significantly higher energy use. 

The lack of automatic control also resulted in no monitoring and automatic control of air quality (humidity, C02 etc.) which directly affects and is affected by the heating system. 

The new Automatic Building Management System, which was programmed exclusively by Coldcurve, consists of 5 Mitsubishi FX3U PLCs and one central Mitsubishi E1 101 HMI. These have been integrated into the existing main control panels of the installation’s buildings and provide control of any function of any part of the installation from the central HMI. 

The systems also provides remote access control, with staff and engineers able to monitor and control the system using mobile phone or PC with internet connection. Operation of the system is fully automatic, with the HMI being for monitoring, analysis and adjustment of parameters, set-points, timings etc. The new system ensures that all functions are monitored and switched automatically, enabling engineers to spend more time on general maintenance and respond more quickly to breakdowns and repairs. 

It also automatically regulates air quality and temperature, ensuring staff and customer comfort and welfare. The stepped heater banks now operate correctly and using PID control, provide large reductions of power use and provide a much more stable and regulated ambient temperature to the installation.

The system allows staff to adjust parameters and set-points as conditions or requirement changes, enabling a much more energy efficient, user friendly and flexible system. 

Although all Coldcurve control panels are bespoke, this particular system was more so due to its size, layout, variables and requirements. Projects with the same size elements like PID control, remote access, multiple-point control and multiple system PLCs had been carried out before, but not a system so vast and with all these elements integrated into one system. This system required us to draw knowledge from many previous projects and apply it to the requirements set out by Cairngorm Mountain. 

It is intended that we use the knowledge and lessons learnt in this project to supply adaptable, efficient and user friendly Automatic Building Management Systems to any commercial, industrial or even domestic client.