In 2005, The Point Depot in Dublin’s docklands received a complete refurbishment and redesign, and was opened again six months later as The O2 Arena.

The O2 is Europe’s largest indoor dedicated music venue, and as such, they need to be able to cater for large crowds who enjoy a beer or three with their evening’s music entertainment.

It was decided as part of the rebuild to install the Exactap beer dispense system to cater for the large expected demand. Exactap is a patented hands-free high speed beer dispense system developed by Niagara technologies of New York, U.S.A, capable of delivering a consistently perfect pint of lager in under three seconds (stout takes about a second longer!).

Super high-volume beer dispense of this nature had never been seen previously. Even at concerts and sports events, regular beer systems were used up until this point, with large numbers of servers pulling pints manually through traditional systems to cater for the demand.

The Exactap approach to high volume beer sales was to save the venue even more in costs by eliminating the requirement for a large bar staff – with Exactap just one bar person could deliver, in theory at least anyway, up to 20 pints per minute on their own. A massive saving for the operator of the bar.

The only issue at the time was that there did not exist a beer cooling system capable of efficiently cooling such massive volumes of beer consistently, while still adhering to the extremely stringent Irish brewery spec.

Kilkenny Cooling Systems’ hard earned reputation as a manufacturer of high quality, tried and tested beer cooling systems paid off as we were approached to develop a beer cooling system capable of coping with such immense demand.

The new cooler design had to match the existing brewery specification, yet it had to accommodate the cooling of thousands of pints per hour.

The result was the Kilkenny Cooling Systems ARENA beer cooler – an application of our existing technology and know-how with several carefully planned engineering modifications to allow it to cope with the increased demand.

Seven Arena coolers were installed in The O2 by Euro Refrigeration where they continue to operate today, delivering thousands of perfectly cool pints of beer each, several nights a week.

Since then, both Croke Park and the new Lansdowne Road / Aviva stadium have been kitted out with this Arena / Exactap configuration, and the system has been working flawlessly to great effect.

Arena coolers were also used as part of a traditional dispense installation in Ravenhill Stadium, as integral units with on-board refrigeration, to be wheeled in and out of the bar tent and stands as required.

Prior to the refurbishment of The O2, beer sales on any particular night never exceeded 100 kegs. After the installation of Exactap and the Kilkenny arena coolers, sales more than doubled, exceeding 250 kegs on the opening night – in excess of 20,000 pints of beer that night alone.

In January 2011, we were approached by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (the Irish Fisheries Board) to with a cooling solution for a mussel farm in County Galway.

Bord Iascaigh Mhara were aware that standard our ice builders were successfully employed in fisheries applications in Tallow, Co. Waterford and in Bantry Bay, and they approached us with a very specific set of requirements for an installation in Leenane, Co. Galway.

With any standard installation, one or more Kilkenny ice builders is used to cool a product, machine or system down to a specific set point. For many years, Kilkenny ice builders have been used for a variety of applications in the dairy and food processing industries in this exact way.

In one instance an ice builder was built to provide cooling water for a plastic injection moulding machine in a toothpaste tube factory. In our own factory for example, our high pressure polyurethane mixing and injection systems are keep at the correct operating temperatures with our own Kilkenny ice builders.

However with the Bord Iascaigh Mhara situation, there were a number of vessels which required cooling. Each vessel had not only to be cooled, but to be maintained at a specific temperature, independent of the others. To meet cost and space constraints, only one Kilkenny system was to be installed, and it had to be sea-water resistant.

The solution that was reached consisted of a modified ice builder with four fully independent chilled water circuits and controls. Using our patented KCS-10 pump, it was possible to circulate the water in all the systems simultaneously using electromechanical regulator valves.

Temperature regulation is very straightforward with this system. The desired temperature for each tank is simply entered to the temperature controller, which regulates the temperature in the tank using the electromechanical valve to control the volume cooling water flowing through the heat exchanger for that tank.

We are very proud of our ability to create custom cooling solutions for a huge range of applications and will happily discuss specific requirements with any customer.

Dublin Airport's Terminal Two opened on 19th November 2010

At its peak, Terminal 2 was the largest construction project in the state, and employed up to 2,600 workers on site.

With its steel and glass facade, the new terminal makes use of natural light to create a modern and comfortable space for both departing and arriving passengers. The three storey terminal building has been designed with bright spaces in areas where passengers dwell such as check-in, baggage reclaim, security and the departures lounge.

Refrigeration-wise, Terminal 2 is kitted out with Kilkenny Cooling Systems beer coolers and coldrooms.

The coldroom in the Slaney bar in particular was an extremely challenging project, because as well as holding the kegs of beer and gas, it had to house all the required refrigeration plant, including liquid cooled refrigeration units and the draught beer cooler itself. Not only this, but the walls of the space into which the room was place were all curved (see picture below). This made space very tight and installation very tricky.

There were access restrictions on the site, and cost, as always, was a consideration, so the project required much more rigorous planning and design than would a standard installation.

In the end, the entire cold room was bespoke designed panel-by panel by the Kilkenny Cooling Systems engineer using the most efficient design possible, and then fully assembled and inspected on our factory floor! This was a first for the company - usually we ship cold rooms straight from production but in this instance we needed to ensure that the curved walls (which in reality were achieved using a series of straight panels), and in particular the panel interfaces, were up to our usual high standard.

Once the rooms was approved in -house, it was labeled, disassembled, and dispatched to the Slaney Bar in Terminal 2, Dublin Airport, where today, ice cold beer can be enjoyed every time you fly!

The refrigeration contractor who carried out the installation was Euro Refrigeration of Dublin.

Many athletes will swear by the use of cold water treatment to help with speedy recovery after tough training sessions and injuries, and the sessions don't get much tougher than those of the Kilkenny Hurling Team!

With the new facilities at Nolan park becoming a reality, team management took advantage of the opportunity to create a permanent ice bath installation in the dressing room for the players to avail of easily. Previous to this, players plunged into buckets full of water and ice.

With our well known reputation for providing top class bespoke cooling solutions, and our background with equine cold water treatment, Kilkenny Cooling Systems was approached to design and build a cooling system for Nolan Park which would allow the players first class cryotherapy treatment -right in their dressing rooms.

With the exact requirements of the team at hand, the company engineer took a visit to the school of sports physiology in the University of Limerick, and met with a professor there in order to establish the optimum design for the cooling system, taking account of different temperatures and contemporary thinking on cryotherapy.

The result? The Kilkenny Cooling Systems Sport Spa.

The spa consists of an insulated stainless steel tank and full refrigeration, filtration, chlorination and ozone addition system. It has fully stainless steel ancillary equipment, electronic thermostat control to the nearest 0.5C and will maintain the optimum cryotherapy temperature (a trade secret!) regardless of the ambient temperature either outdoors or indoors, giving the team totally consistent results every time they train.

Kilkenny Cooling Systems has also fitted a similar installation in the plunge pool in the Escape spa and leisure centre in The Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny where brave guests and members take the plunge into twelve degree water after a spell in the sauna or steam room.

At Kilkenny Cooling Systems, we are proud of our ability to rise to almost any design challenge in refrigeration engineering, and we look forward to installing more sports spas in any venue for those who recognise their huge importance in fitness and injury recovery.