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News Release from: Spirax Sarco | Subject: Easiheat Engineered System
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 23 February 2006
Heater a sweetener in Manchester
Steam-to-hot water package helps sugar company reduce energy costs at Manchester facility.
A Spirax Sarco Easiheat Engineered System has helped Tate and Lyle reduce energy costs at its Manchester facility The Easiheat was installed as part of a bigger project that included a new boiler
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 11 Feb 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The whole project is expected to pay for itself within about two years, with early estimates suggesting that the Easiheat itself will achieve a payback of less than 12 months.
"It's early days, but we know we're saving money," said Alan James, Project Engineer, Tate and Lyle.
The Easiheat steam-to-hot water package also lets Tate and Lyle cope with peaks in demand for liquid sugar that it could not previously meet.
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The facility in Trafford Park, Manchester, produces 15 tonne batches of liquid sugar for delivery by road tanker.
The company previously used three electric boilers to fill a 60 tonne storage tank with hot water overnight, ready to supply the next day's production process.
"We had 60 tonne for use each day, but if someone rang up and asked for extra, we couldn't do it because it took too long to heat the water up," said James.
Electricity was a convenient but expensive option for heating the water, the original design dating back to an era when energy usage was not a major design factor.
The initial idea was to carry on heating the water overnight using a stainless steel heating coil fitted inside the hot water storage tank and supplied with steam from the new boiler.
But this proposal fell foul of health and safety legislation.
"The PM5 regulations meant we couldn't run the boiler unstaffed because there's nobody on site overnight, so we couldn't use that time to heat the water," said James.
"That's when I called in Spirax Sarco".
The Easiheat system supplies up to 5 tonne of instantaneous hot water per hour, eliminating the need to run the boiler to heat water overnight.
The new steam boiler is switched on at the start of each day and in just 20 minutes there is enough hot water to begin processing sugar.
"We're no longer limited by the capacity of the hot water tank," said James.
"We can expand production to meet demand".
The process dissolves solid sugar in 90C water and cools the resulting liquid sugar solution to 30C before shipping.
During cooling, fresh water is heated to 40C, which is then fed to the Easiheat system where the system's internal plate heat exchanger heats it to 90C to supply the process.
"The results following six months of production are pleasing," said James.
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