Energy strategy pays dividends for MoD

An Environmental Treatment Concepts product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 17, 2002

Large numbers of MoD establishments in hard water areas throughout the UK are reducing their energy costs and helping the environment by using electronic descaling.

Large numbers of MoD establishments in hard water areas throughout the UK are substantially reducing their energy costs and helping the environment due to the installation of the Scalewatcher-Enigma electronic descaling system.

In the South of England, HMS Nelson, HMS Excellent, HMS Dryad, HMS Collingwood, Fort Blockhouse (previously HMS Dolphin) and RAF Odiham are some of the bases that have switched to this environmentally friendly way of descaling pipes and water fed equipment.

At three of the establishments, the SEEPO (Station Energy and Environmental Officer), who is responsible for all energy efficiency and environmental matters, has instigated the installation of this equipment.

Malcolm Peters is SEEPO at RAF Odiham.

He has installed the Scalewatcher-Enigma system at each of the MoD stations he has been assigned to since he first became convinced of the energy saving and environmental advantages of the system eight years ago when he was Energy Manager at HMS Nelson.

He is currently carrying out a trial on the system at RAF Odiham.

In 1993 the effectiveness of the Scalewatcher-Enigma system was evaluated on one of a series of large domestic hot water calorifiers in accommodation blocks at HMS Nelson.

After six months, a treated calorifier was opened for inspection and found to contain just a pile of loose scale at the bottom and a minimal amount of scale on the heat exchanger, which was soft and easily removed.

This contrasted with the other untreated calorifiers which all contained several millimetres of scale on both the heat exchanger and inside walls.

Prior to the Scalewatcher-Enigma units being installed at HMS Nelson, regular descaling was carried out on calorifiers, boilers and water fed equipment either manually or by removing the equipment and taking it to the Navy's base at Whale Island to be dipped in acid.

As 6mm of limescale increases energy consumption by 40%, Malcolm Peters was aware that the station was not only incurring increasing energy bills, due to large quantities of scale in pipelines and water fed equipment, but also from costs on maintenance and acid descaling.

Other considerations such as the environment and the inconvenience of the calorifiers being out of commission were also a major factor in evaluating the Scalewatcher-Enigma system.

"Not only do I have to reduce the station's energy usage but I also have to ensure that the station meets the target set by environment legislation, that is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by the generation of electricity, burning of gas etc", says Peters.

"To achieve this we need to target energy usage.

The Scalewatcher-Enigma system has helped towards our goal of substantially reducing energy consumption".

Since Peters arranged for installation of the Scalewatcher-Enigma system throughout HMS Nelson including the Officer' Wardroom, Junior Ratings Mess, Chief Petty Officer's Mess, two 11 storey and a 14 storey building he has also fitted units throughout Fort Blockhouse.

Following his appointment to RAF Odiham he has so far arranged for the system to be installed in the Sergeant's Mess and Dakota block.

When the first of these units was fitted, Environmental Treatment Concepts installed a datalogger to monitor the unit's performance.

The data logger took temperature reading of the treated water every 15min over a 3-month period.

It provided regular printed read outs of the data giving temperature differentials, which were transferred to a graph to visually illustrate that the Scalewatcher-Enigma was working successfully and removing scale from the system.