SKOV Technical Seminar on NSW Central Coast

On April 2, 2025, SKOV held one of a series of technical seminars at the Clan Hotel, Wamberal on the NSW Central Coast.
Arne Overgaard, SKOV’s Export Manager hosted the event with a team of SKOV technical specialists.
These seminars aim to help the technical staff who design and develop SKOV’s products interact with those who install and maintain this advanced equipment on poultry farms.
The Australian and global poultry industry has moved through many levels of advanced technologies at a truly frantic pace.
The technical staff attending this seminar are competent electricians who are adept at dealing with highly sophisticated controller applications in combination with SKOV hardware, a process that keeps poultry farming pre-eminent as Australia’s leading protein source.
The first topic on the program was ‘LPC fans, power quality and Harmonic issues’.
The SKOV team, including Tommy Bak, Chief Technology Officer, and others, contributed to a lively discussion session.
The issues around harmonics are complex and multifactorial, and the technical staff’s on-farm experience was impressive.
One of the main topics of the first session was introducing an improved generation of LPC fans.
The new drives have improved water resistance. Tommy Bak outlined more details of the new generation of fans, including an improved gasket design and extra cable gland option.
He also discussed strategies to prevent moisture and water ingress into drive units.
Tommy explained that loads that do not draw current at the fundamental frequency generate harmonics in the power system.
Harmonics are currents or voltages with frequencies that are integer multiples of the basic power frequency.
Co-existence with the power grid is an important consideration.
Tommy Krogh and Thomas Ladegaard introduced the next topic, Blue Control climate and production controller regarding set up and commissioning.
They provided further instruction on connections for all equipment installed in the shed and the installation of the temperature sensor selections.
The software updates next modified the Dynamic Setpoint. Instead of five choices, the user just tells the controller if the birds are too hot or too cold.
The Dynamic Setpoint is gone; now, the Setpoint on the front equals the temperature setpoint.
Torben Breiner spoke first in the afternoon session on ‘Detailed User Training on Blue Control’.
He mentioned how the rearing of commercial poultry could be called a ‘New World’ where the scaling of expertise in both technology and management had generated a shift in user focus.
Torben explained that most people are ‘mainstreamers’ who don’t use technology for its own sake.
Then there are the ‘Willing Adapters’, who are tempted to use something more sophisticated but need easy ways to adopt new features.
Experts are happy to explore products or services and push the limits of ‘what I can do’.
The following day, SKOV ran its SKOV/Agritech User Training Program for producers and their key staff 
members.
Mikkel Overgaard (SKOV) and Frankie Horwood (Agritech) introduced the session, and Torben Breiner 
delivered two sessions focused on ‘User training on the BlueControl system’.
Tommy Krogh explained new developments and use of the FarmOnline program and the revised FarmOnline + system.
A training session with small groups of specialists who work daily in poultry sheds provides valuable lessons for all participants.
The learning is reciprocal, and the team from SKOV received feedback to help them develop and optimise future applications and components.
Finally, Tommy Krogh spoke about world trends in livestock management, AI monitoring and air filtration, bringing the user training seminar to a close.
SKOV has developed what is arguably a globally most capable poultry shed environment control and on-farm management system and equipment.
Though SKOV products can claim to be state of the art, any kit, however advanced, is only as good as the people behind its design, development and on farm service capacity.
The SKOV Technical and Producers seminars demonstrate, through close interaction with those who install and rely on their products for efficient poultry production, that SKOV supports its products to a standard that matches the quality of its equipment.