Following these five easy steps will allow your water treatment plant to increase its steam boiler efficiency while lowering costs and improving processes.
Steam boilers are closed, pressurized vessels that use a heat source to convert water into steam for various purposes. These reasons can include industrial processes, heating, power generation, and more.
Nearly 40% of all fossil fuel burned in the industrial sector in the United States is consumed in steam production. Simple steps can have a large impact on the operational costs associated with fuel, water treatment, and labor.
This chart shows a typical breakdown of these costs where fuel consumption is the primary expense.
By ensuring your steam boiler is operating at maximum efficiency, you can save time, money, and energy.
Learn how to improve your steam boiler’s operating efficiency with these five helpful methods:
Clean boiler heat exchange surfaces allow for maximum heat transfer from the burning fuel to the boiler water. Feedwater quality is critical to prevent waterside deposit formation within the boiler and maintain peak efficiency. Waterside deposits will insulate heat exchange surfaces and sharply increase fuel consumption.
KEY INSIGHT: Industry standards suggest that 1/16 inch of deposit can increase fuel costs by 12.5%. Because fuel consumption is typically the most expensive cost in boiler operation, this can have a major impact on overall costs.
To provide early indication of fouling, it is recommended to regularly monitor water chemistry and critical operating parameters including stack, tube, and coil temperature.
Visual inspections of the waterside of a boiler should also be performed to ensure the effectiveness of the current treatment program.
The production of steam in a boiler leaves behind dissolved and suspended solids in the water. These solids accumulate with continued steam production, necessitating regular blowdown of boiler water. The boiler water that is removed during blowdown has been chemically treated and heated to operating temperature.
KEY INSIGHT: Boiler blowdown is the process of water intentionally wasted from a boiler to avoid concentration of impurities during continuing evaporation of steam.
The result? Excessive boiler blowdown increases the treatment, fuel, and water costs. Too little boiler blowdown can cause carryover of boiler water in steam which can also result in excess fuel and chemical consumption.
The installation of an automated blowdown control system allows for active monitoring of the boiler conductivity and optimizes the volume of blowdown based on fluctuating steam loads.
KEY INSIGHT: A well-designed automated blowdown system will lead to increased boiler efficiency and promote improved steam quality.
Boiler blowdown rates are mainly dependent on the amount and type of minerals entering the system. The installation of pretreatment equipment that will alter or remove the minerals in the make-up water can significantly reduce the required blowdown and the consumption of water treatment chemicals.
This equipment can include:
KEY INSIGHT: Thoroughly evaluate all pretreatment options for your specific application and water source to ensure you achieve the maximum amount of savings.
Returning high temperature condensate will reduce the cold-water make-up rates and save your plant water, energy, and treatment costs.
Since condensate typically contains low levels of dissolved solids, it provides further savings by reducing the required blowdown rates. Your system design and use of steam will dictate the amount of condensate that can be returned.
The potential savings are typically $30 per thousand gallons of condensate. These money-saving possibilities will give you the incentive to install the equipment necessary to return more condensate or repair any failures in the existing network that are leading to condensate losses.
Maximizing the energy in the condensate that is already being returned is another consideration. Returning pressurized condensate will reduce the flash losses and increase the overall energy savings. Insulation of the return piping will also minimize heat losses to the environment.
Though the installation of meters on a steam system may not directly impact the efficiency of a boiler, the data they collect will allow you to gain insight into the current operating conditions and provide a clearer understanding of the overall cost of steam production.
With the availability of the usage data from metering, opportunities for improved steam plant efficiency can be identified and quantified.
KEY INSIGHT: Control of boiler pressure, firing order, and production scheduling based on steam plant load can have a major impact on the cost of steam generation. By benchmarking and tracking steam costs, optimal operating profiles can be identified, and any excursions can be quickly corrected.
Your water treatment plant’s steam system offers a multitude of opportunities to identify energy reduction projects. These includes:
DuBois Chemicals technical specialists recognized thought leaders in the development of industry best practices. Our data-driven processes will get your steam systems operating at the lowest possible life-cycle cost and proactively maintain them there.
Want to learn more about DuBois Chemicals? The secret is in the system.
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