Steam system cuts GBP10,000 from energy bill
A
Spirax Sarco product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jan 18, 2008
The heart of the Spirax Sarco system is a plate heat exchanger that heats the boiler feed water using the flash steam that is returning with the condensate.
Bandvulc Tyres has knocked 8%, or around GBP10,000, off its energy bill by fitting a Spirax Sarco system, which uses flash steam from the returning condensate to preheat the feed to the boiler.
Before the new system was fitted, Bandvulc was already using some energy from the returning condensate to maintain the water in the boiler feed tank at 95C.
However, heating the feed water any further would have caused cavitation problems at the inlet to the feed pump.
There was also a considerable amount of flash steam, which was generating an unsightly plume from the boiler feed tank.
In order to eliminate the emission, the company was forced to cool the condensate before it reached the tank, even though the cooling system wasted some of the available heat energy and used electricity.
Spirax Sarco helped Bandvulc to engineer an effective solution to the problem.
First, a skid-mounted heat recovery system was introduced between the boiler feed pump and the boiler itself.
The heart of this system is a plate heat exchanger that heats the boiler feed water using the flash steam that is returning with the condensate.
Positioning the heat exchanger after the boiler feed pump is crucial to the success of the entire scheme, because the feedwater is under pressure at that point.
This effectively prevents the water from turning into steam, even though its temperature is now raised from 95C to 125C before it enters the boiler.
This approach required several other modifications to be made to the existing steam system.
For example, the feed pump used to have simple on/off controls.
Now the pump must run constantly to ensure continuous heat recovery, so modulating controls were introduced.
This in turn requires the control system to keep a close check on the level of water in the boiler, so new level probes were also supplied.
"The system is working pretty much exactly as Spirax Sarco said it would" according to Bandvulc Director Richard O'Connell.
"It's saving us around 8%, just as predicted".
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Spirax heating reduces energy use in hospital
Spirax Sarco has supplied energy-saving heating and hot-water systems for Kettering General Hospital. -
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Catalent Pharma Solutions has swapped its old shell-and-tube calorifiers for compact Spirax Sarco Easiheat steam to hot water systems. -
Easiheat system replaces heat exchangers
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Pump traps stop gas heater stalling
Two automatic pump traps from Spirax Sarco have helped solve a serious control issue for Sembcorp, a UK industrial utilities and services company.
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