Introduction
In 2018, The Cope Company’s AUTOBrine® team completed a challenging installation of an automated brine delivery system at a large data center facility. The successful completion of the AUTOBrine® installation ultimately helped the customer conserve space, improve security, and automated the task of supplying salt for the water treatment system. Efficient operation was key to maintaining up-time for the client’s critical equipment and facility.
The Customer
This AUTOBrine® customer, an international digital solutions company, operates a high security data center and colocation facilities that provide cloud storage, inter-connectivity, and disaster recovery services to its clients. The facility requires multiple water softener systems that are critical for maintaining the banks of chillers and HVAC equipment that keep the mission critical computer hardware running optimally. Before AUTOBrine®, the facility’s limited staff was required to routinely monitor and manually supply the softeners with heavy bags of water conditioning salt required for the system to maintain and operate efficiently. If the employees that maintained the softeners were too busy with other responsibilities or were absent due to sick or vacation days, the task of maintaining the softeners could be neglected. The space in the mechanical room was also limited and storing pallets of salt interfered with walkways and access doors. Additional security protocols had to be put in place to allow salt deliveries into the facility.
The Challenges
The client desired an above ground automated brine delivery system that would provide minimal 
maintenance, maximum up-time, and not require access into the facility to fill. For AUTOBrine®, this project created a location challenge. For aesthetic and security reasons, the system had to be located within the secure walled perimeter of the chiller equipment courtyard. The opening that could be created in the wall to fit bulk brine storage tanks inside was limited. However, The Cope Company was able to configure a system that provided sufficient brine storage capacity by cross-linking multiple bulk brine storage tanks that would fit through the wall opening. Through meticulous coordination with the client and their contractors, and some careful rigging by the Cope installation team, Cope positioned the bulk brine tanks through the wall. Cope installed supply lines from the bulk brine tanks and into the secure mechanical room and connected multiple softeners. Cope installed controls to automatically deliver brine to the softeners and regulate the brine levels required. The system also included a fill connection to a secured fill port on the outside of the wall so that the system could be filled without having to enter the facility. The system was also equipped with a monitor, independent of the client’s IT network, that allows Cope to monitor the system brine level daily and proactively schedule deliveries to ensure the system never runs out of brine.
The Outcome
Since the completion of the AUTOBrine® installation, the facility has freed up the storage space once used to store pallets of salt. Employees are no longer required to routinely monitor and manually load bags of salt, which eliminated injury risk to the employees. The brine level in the systems’ bulk tanks are remotely monitored and filling the tanks does not require access into the facility, which greatly simplifies the deliveries due to the high security protocols. Now, the facility receives bulk brine delivered to their AUTOBrine® system, which is also helping to reduce the facility’s carbon footprint by eliminating the disposal of pallets, pallet wrap and plastic bags that the salt was previously packaged in.
The client is very pleased with how the install went. The reliability of the systems used in the facility and security of the facility has been maintained through use of Cope’s AUTOBrine® and delivery service. In addition, the staff is thrilled to be done with monitoring and manually handling all the heavy bags of salt.