Utilities contingency plan for vaccine development

This pharmaceutical and biotechnology company was heavily involved in the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines.

With their work being more important than ever, they needed to ensure full contingency plans for mission-critical utilities supporting the plant.

Most importantly, the vivarium rooms and associated laboratories had to have their supply of chilled water guaranteed. If the supply was interrupted it had to be restored within 24 hours to ensure the facility stayed within GxP compliance. If chilled water was lost, all the research from clinical trials and cold storage freezers would be contaminated greatly affecting the site’s R&D projects.

The existing chilled water system did not have safe and easily accessible connections for temporary rental chillers. So, they engaged Aggreko’s engineering team to design and install a solution that would ensure the supply could be restored within 24 hours in any situation.

A team of three Aggreko temperature control engineers conducted an on-site assessment along with the regional project manager to fully understand the requirements and design the ideal contingency plan.

We provided the mechanical scope needed to adapt the existing system with permanent chilled water and steam connections for future aggreko rental units. This made it not only safe to connect temporary chillers in the event of an emergency, but also made the setup time much quicker.

With chilled water being so critical to the plant, the temporary units were put on rent exclusively for the plant and held at a local Aggreko Service Center so that they could be installed 24/7 at any given notice.

Tonnage and power requirements vary throughout the year based on seasonality. So Aggreko’s solution adjusts with this to keep costs down and right-size the requirements. In peak summer conditions we provide 2,000T of chilled water and 5,000kW of auxiliary power, along with all the required materials, piping, and electrical distribution.

The solution was approved by the plant and guaranteed that the chilled water supply could be restored within 24 hours in the event of a utility failure.

This meant that the plant could concentrate on its critical research and development work, getting COVID-19 vaccines approved and delivered across the world.

By ensuring production always stayed within GxP compliance, the plant not only protected its productivity and profitability but most importantly delivered vaccines as quickly as possible, providing a route out of the pandemic for countries around the globe.