Chip manufacturer NXP Semiconductors has officially taken into use its new cooling towers in Nijmegen. BAM was responsible for the construction of the hot and cold water basins and the pump building. They were also responsible for all other electrical and mechanical installations. The work took about two years.
Chips are often invisible. At the same time, they are indispensable in our society. Increasingly, they contribute to appliances using less energy. However, producing chips requires a lot of energy. Think of energy for the various machines and ovens. But energy is also needed to treat the air in the factory. This releases a lot of heat, which has to be dissipated. This is done through about ten kilometres of (hefty) water pipes on the site. The hot water is piped from the plant to five cooling plants (Chillers). These each have a capacity of 4.5 MW. They cool down the water. Afterwards, the cooled water can be reused. Through evaporation of cooling tower water, heat is released to the outside air.
Old cooling towers
Once the new cooling towers are running at full capacity later this year, the old cooling towers on the site will no longer be of any use. They will then be decommissioned. This is necessary because some parts are more than 50 years old and reliability will be compromised.
New cooling towers are more economical and quieter
When building the new cooling plant, a lot of attention was paid to making it as reliable as possible. This means that part of the installation is duplicated. The power supply, for instance, is set up in such a way that any malfunctions only have a limited impact. Moreover, the noise level of the towers is much lower compared to the old towers. The installation is also about 20% more economical than the old installations.
End of an exciting time
Daniel Schaeffers, facilities operations manager at NXP, on the new towers: "The commissioning of the new cooling installation does not come a day too soon and for me it marks the end of an exciting period. The old cooling tower installations are really at the end of their lifespan after 50 years, and my team has carried out several emergency repairs in recent years to ensure that things remained in operation for a sufficiently long time."
Good cooperation
Project leader Jacques Oostervink is especially pleased with the good cooperation with BAM. The company took care of both construction and installation. "The cooperation with BAM was excellent, which is crucial in a project like this. This is not a home, garden and kitchen installation, but a high-tech installation. Here, reliability and longevity are of great importance. Especially in these turbulent times when there are all kinds of disruptions in the supply chain and we also had to deal with numerous corona-related constraints. Delivering the cooling towers within two years is handsome work."
Integral approach key to success
BAM Industrie and BAM Infra approached the project integrally as early as the preparation stage. One of the results of this collaboration was that NXP's production process was not disrupted during the phased execution of the work.
Mutual trust
Robert Imhof, director of BAM Industrie: "The basis of the project was mutual trust. There were no elaborate specifications and it was only through good and open cooperation that we managed to make this project a success. A team spirit was created from the common goal. Only with the right people in the right place will you bring a unique project like this to a successful conclusion."
24/7 in operation
Stefan Bours, project manager BAM Industrie: "What we shouldn't underestimate is that we were building on a site that is in operation 24/7, 365 days a year. We also had to deal with strict corona guidelines to ensure business continuity of NXP's production processes as much as possible. The final result achieved within schedule is a wonderful reflection of the team performance delivered!"
Photo: Designer Theo Weyn 'immortalised' his contribution to the cooling tower building. He did this in the coloured circles found on the front facade. Each column shows a binary ASCII code, which in turn stands for a letter. Together, the 26 ASCII codes form the word: Designed by Theo Weyn 2018
More news on NXP: Six Dutch projects around micro- and nanoelectronics notified as IPCEI, including two projects from NXP.
