Specialized Project: McMurdo Station

McMurdo, Antarctica

McMurdo is the southernmost accessible seaport in the world, located in the Ross Sea about 800 miles north of the South Pole in Antarctica. At McMurdo Station, scientists perform a wide range of environmental studies year round in a 50 building complex.

Alerton's BACtalk for Windows system is being used to control newly installed waste heat recovery and distribution systems in the research facility. In the power plant it is used to control genset cooling fans, waste heat recovery exchangers, and distribution pumping on a hot glycol loop that delivers district heat to 15 station buildings. In the near future the system will be expanded to provide monitoring and control of critical areas and equipment throughout the 50 building research facility. Eventually, it will be utilized as a centralized low-temperature warning system for all of the buildings. An additional installation is underway at another Antarctica location, Palmer Station.

Project Highlights

• 200 Points
• Alerton BACtalk for Windows Workstation
• 2 global controllers
• MS/TP LAN
• Station wide fiber LAN to connect outlying buildings