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Trend Setting Approach towards controllable Losses in Steam Generating System

By Sri Ansuman Sen Sharma; India Boiler dot Com Introduction: Steam generating system efficiency is defined as the heat added to the working fluid expressed as a percentage of the heat in the fuel being burnt. Efficiency = Heat output in steam/ Heat Input through fuel. If someone does this calculation and finds their boiler efficiency is to the tune of 85 to 88%, the person quite naturally would be satisfied with the performance of their boiler plant. In fact, it is quite often, one would tend to approximation in measuring performance parameters in order to reach the efficiency figure of his/ her preference. This approach doesnt give any sort of idea about the performance nor does it affect any change in actions to optimize performance of the system. When asked about the performance, some times you come across these responses: Our stack gas never looks black! In fact it looks a little whitish yellow. We are very careful about supplying adequate air. We have Oxygen monitoring system; therefore our combustion must be pretty efficient! Our stack temperature is 180oC, which is same as what other industries are maintaining. We are using Natural Gas as fuel! We have an Economizer in line and therefore all waste heat is being recovered We have hundreds of steam traps in the steam distribution system. Hardly 4 to 5 are passing, which is less than even 0.5%! We have a large and complex steam distribution system. All steam pipes are well insulated. Only few of the valve insulations are sometimes removed to attend gland leakage (You know, Indian Steam Valves!). Since they frequently leak, we keep them open to attend the leakage from time to time. However, its just a few valves! Since we have a low pressure boiler, we are using softening plant for water treatment ..and so on. With more focus on energy conservation these days, a number of technologies have evolved and continues evolving, which can improve the performance significantly. But if you are already satisfied with the performance of your system, would you take the pain to introduce a new technology or change the existing practice and risk rocking a steady ship? Therefore first we need to be dissatisfied! As Sharukh Khan theatrically says in one of those Ads DONT BE SANTUSHT! Its not Heat.its Money! The new trend setting approach is exactly that. Gone were the days, where fuel bill was a necessary expenditure to achieve all important Production. And forget about passing on the fuel cost to the customers, because you would be kicked out of the competition in that case. You will have to start looking for the Controllable Losses and when you identify them, there are lots of ways to plug them. One has to first change their approach towards Steam Generating System.

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Performance of steam generator: In order to achieve economic optimization in Boiler operation, one needs to ensure maximum extraction of heat from the fuel and then transfer maximum extracted heat to water and steam without causing any accident. Not all boilers are created equal each boiler system has its own specific characteristics, be it a different design consideration, different fuels or different operating conditions. Approach towards economic optimization naturally differs from system to system. But the good thing is Every Boiler operates under the same fundamental thermodynamic principles. If we take two Steam generating systems, one with a capacity of 700 TPH steam at 510oC superheat and 110 bar pressure and another with a capacity of 8 TPH saturated steam at 12 bar pressure, the fundamental for heat utilization remains same. Steam generating system efficiency to the greater extent depends on the skill of designing but there is no fundamental reason for any difference in efficiency between a high pressure and low pressure boiler. Large boilers generally would be expected to be more efficient particularly due to design improvements. If we start looking for the controllable losses, if we can identify them, we can definitely find means to stop them. Change in outlook: Actually there are hundreds of areas, where we need to change our outlook. However, for the sake of this discussion, let us consider only those statements, I have mentioned earlier. Statement #1 Our stack gas never looks black! In fact it looks a little whitish yellow. We are very careful about supplying adequate air. Mind you; this kind of attitude lies with the operator of small and aged boilers, generally using lignite or other solid fuel, firing manually most of the time, and guise what? They are more in numbers in our country! The only priority for their operator is to supply needed quantity of steam at required pressure to the user end. The inlet Air Damper remains in 100% open condition all the time and at times, 80 150% excess air is being used. No wonder the smoke looks whitish yellow in colour! The owners, not the operators, in this case are required to change their approach. This can be helped if some one uses a calculator and tell the owner that even lowering the excess air just by 10% might lower the annual fuel cost by Rs. 60-70 Ks, even when you are using a cheap fuel like lignite. Whereas, the scope is to lower down the excess air by nearly 40-50% in many cases! Then perhaps they would start thinking about installing some combustion control techniques. A little modification in the furnace and fuel feeding methods can result into a lot of saving. They may even start thinking about getting a new, more energy efficient Boiler all together! The mantra is. DONT BE SANTUSHT! Statement #2 We have Oxygen monitoring system; therefore our combustion must be pretty efficient! This is a slightly better scenario than the previous one. Here the intent of controlling excess air is present but the method of application is doubtful in some cases. Simply installing a Combustion Control unit by Oxygen Trimming may not achieve the desired control of excess air. In most cases, when the process operator starts complaining about the temperature drop (read pressure drop, since more steam is being drawn than the boiler can produce), the poor operator at the boiler has no option other than trying to get maximum..and the result? Inlet Damper in 100% open
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condition and to hell with what Oxygen meter is showing! In fact they are the happiest when these Oxygen meters start giving faulty results (which they eventually do) and then they are in no hurry to get it calibrated. In many cases VFD is not installed, therefore losing in both combustion efficiency and fan power. In this case both the owner and the operator should be aware that merely introducing Combustion Control Technology is not enough. You have to ensure proper operation of the same. Just DONT BE SANTUSHT because you have spent some money to ensure efficient combustion. Statement #3 Our stack temperature is 180oC, which is same as what many other industries are maintaining. We are using Natural Gas as fuel! Now that is a criminal waste of energy! When we can bring down that temperature to even 100oC if possible and when lowering of 22oC can increase the efficiency by a whopping 1%! One may not be able to change it that easily but at least one should be always aware about it. If we keep in mind that there is a huge amount of energy available, which can be recovered, we would be always looking for the economically viable options to recover the same. There can be so many options.installing an Economizer, installing an Air Heater, installing a condensate heater, using the heat in an evaporative chiller, or one can even think of drying fuel by the hot gas. Till you get some solution to recover that heat, just DONT BE SANTUSHT. See money going out of your chimney whenever you look at the stack. Statement #4 We have an Economizer in line and therefore all waste heat is being recovered This is again a slightly better scenario than the previous one. Some thing has been done to recover the waste heat, therefore no one can blame the intention but in many cases, the application is again doubtful. I will interject with one of my personal experience here. One of the chemical Industries, have asked us to review their system since they doubted the adequacy of steam generation from one of their package type boilers. Their stack temperature sometimes goes as high as 200-210oC. They are firing Natural Gas and sometimes FO. They also have an Economizer in line! We came to know from the operators that the temperature pick up in the economizer is around 5oC! Fortunately, during our visit, the Economizer was taken off line because of a tube leakage and since repairing was going on, we could get a look inside. What we found was the partition wall which was designed to be there (it was there in the drawing alright!) to guide the hot flue gas across the tubes, was absent. The flue gas was going inside the Economizer and short circuiting to the outlet without passing through the Ecotubes. The Economizer was practically serving the purpose of an ash collector when they have been using FO (which was evident from the thick layer of ash collected at the bottom). Now, this boiler was in operation for several years, during which a number of times the Economizer was opened for tube repairing. It never occurred to anyone that The Economizer is redundant, it is not recovering any waste heat..why? Because everybody was SANTUSHT, an Economizer was kept in line after all! This is a classical example of the approach, which we are required to change. Statement #5 We have hundreds of steam traps in the steam distribution system. Hardly 4 to 5 are passing, which is less than even 0.5%! A definite understatement! Much more than those numbers are likely to be in failed open condition. There are very few organizations, which are seriously checking trap condition
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regularly. In most of the process industries, once the traps are fitted, since they are self operated, they are usually forgotten. Particularly where condensate is recovered through a closed cycle (which is of course commendable), it becomes extremely difficult to identify a faulty trap. It requires a trained team of professional to identify a trap in failed open condition. This is of course going to cost money, in fact, quite a lot of money since you are planning to replace a trap every time it is found faulty! Who is willing to spend unnecessarily for such small things? Only large plants, which are having large and complicated distribution system, may be able to afford such expenditure.this could be the common reaction from most of the small plant operators. Here is a simple variant of the Napier formula, which gives a pretty close estimation of the Steam loss through an orifice. Steam Flow (kg/hr) W = 11x Pa x D 2 [Where Pa is Absolute Pressure, kg/cm and D is diameter of Orifice in cm ] Formula for daily Fuel Cost per Trap - Using Cost of Natural Gas for steam raising: Q = W x 24 x hfg x C / (BE x CV) Where: Q = Energy Lost per day in Rupees L = kg/Hr of steam lost hfg = Latent heat of steam at corresponding pressure C = Cost of fuel per sm3 BE = Boiler Efficiency CV = Calorific Value in kcal/ sm3 When using some other fuel, CV and C are to be taken accordingly. Even if we consider a partially passing trap or valve or any other orifice, we will see the cost of steam loss is reaching a staggering figure. Next time I see a steam trap, I would start wonderingis it passing? I will see money going down the drain (literally!) and I will not be SANTUSHT until I make sure it is not. Statement #6 We have a large and complex steam distribution system. All steam pipes are well insulated. Only few of the valve insulations are sometimes removed to attend gland leakage (You know, Indian Steam Valves!). Since they frequently leak, we keep them open to attend the leakage from time to time. However, its just a few valves! That happens to be a fact! A steam line has to be insulated and that is universally agreed. You ask whyand 8 out of 10 answers would be Steam would get condensed, otherwise. There is nothing wrong with the answer, but everything wrong with the approach. Lets talk money. The heat losses through bare pipes can be found by reference to Table given by Spirax Sarco and using a simple equation. Against different temperature difference, heat emission per meter of un-insulated pipe is to be taken from the below mentioned table. It is considered as heat emission from bare horizontal pipes with ambient temperatures between 10C and 20C and still air conditions. The result may not be very accurate, but it would give a close estimation of the actual loss taking place.

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Table 1 Temperature Pipe size (NB) difference steam to air 15 20 25 C W/ m 60 60 72 88 70 72 87 106 80 86 104 125 90 100 121 146 100 116 140 169 110 132 160 193 120 149 181 219 130 168 203 247 140 187 226 276 150 208 250 306 160 229 276 338 170 251 302 372 180 275 330 407 190 299 359 444 200 325 389 483

32 111 132 155 180 207 237 268 301 337 374 413 455 499 544 592

40 125 147 171 196 223 251 282 313 347 382 418 457 497 538 582

50 145 177 212 248 287 328 371 417 464 514 566 620 676 735 795

65 172 209 248 291 336 385 436 490 547 607 670 736 805 877 951

80 210 253 298 347 400 457 517 581 649 720 794 873 955 1041 1130

100 250 311 376 443 514 587 664 743 825 911 999 1090 1184 1281 1381

150 351 432 519 610 706 807 914 1025 1142 1263 1390 1521 1658 1800 1947

Using the temperature difference of the steam and atmosphere, it can be converted as Fuel cost per meter length per day of bare pipe = HL (from the table) x 3.6 x 4.187 x 24 x C/ (BE x CV) Even if we neglect the loss due to condensate, this would sum up to a considerable amount if we use a calculator. Next time, when we see an un-insulated steam pipe, we would not think of steam condensation, we will see MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN. Here is an interesting piece of information. It is not only important to insulate the bare pipe but all hot parts of the system with the exception of safety valves should be insulated. This includes all flanged joints on the mains, and also the valves and other fittings. Equivalent lengths of pipe for valves and fittings can be taken as: Pair of mating flanges - 0.5 m Line size valve - 1.0 m So if we have 4 or 5 line size valves un-insulated, those should be counted as 4-5 m of bare pipe. We can not just wait for the annual turnaround to attend the miscellaneous insulation jobs. As prefabricated insulating covers for flanged joints and valves are now more widely available the loss by keeping these parts un-insulated for maintenance point of view can be avoided. These are usually provided with fasteners so that they can readily be detached to provide access for maintenance purposes. Effect of moisture Insulation primarily depends on air-filled voids to function effectively. Exposure to moisture causes the displacement of insulating air by heatconducting water. Waterlogged insulation transfers heat 15-20 times faster than dry insulation! Protecting insulation from moisture/water ingress is just as important as selecting the most effective type of insulation and installing
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an economic thickness. The practical requirement, then, is to make waterproofing an integral part of any insulating job. Install adequate, leak-proof vapour barriers on the interior (warm) side of walls, ceilings or floors. Weatherproof exterior walls by cladding or other treatment that prevents water infiltration. Maintain the integrity of water-impervious roof membrane by regular inspection and maintenance. Cover insulated pipes with suitable cladding (whether for indoor or outdoor applications) with sealed joints, and maintain its integrity by inspection and prompt repair of damaged sections. For high-temperature applications, choose a vapour-permeable covering that will allow moisture to pass outward. Statement #7 Since we have a low pressure boiler, we are using softening plant for water treatment What is wrong in this statement? Apparently nothing, because a good softening plant should be enough for a low pressure boiler, so far as water quality control is concerned. Does a softening reduce TDS? The answer is No. Does the use of soft water reduce Blow Down? The answer is still No. Does Blow Down affect efficiency? The answer is still No! Why? Because most standards for computation of boiler efficiency, including IS 8753 and BS845 do not include blow down as a loss in the efficiency determination process.. and we are SANTUSHT! Should we? In a small boiler plant usually there is no flush steam recovery system and here the cost of fuel loss comes to Bw x (hg h) x 24 x C/ (BE x CV) Where, Bw = Blow down quantity per hour hg = Enthalpy of 1 kg of saturated steam produced under working pressure, h = Enthalpy of 1 kg of feed water entering the boiler. And Bw can be calculated as (considering no condensate return) Bw= (Generation in kg per hour x Feed Water TDS) / (permissible TDS in Boiler Water Feed Water TDS) if we consider use of return condensate as Feed water with some % age of make up water from the softening plant, the blow down rate will decrease and we can work it out from simple material balance. It is evident that if we can keep the Feed water TDS as minimum as possible, the required rate of Blow down will decrease. Though the permissible TDS in Boiler Water is quite high for low pressure boilers (3500 5000 ppm), still the blow down requirement would be considerably high. Usually once a shift blow down is the most common practice in many boiler plants. Where as, a small RO plant or a DM plant is not costing very high these days. Why dont we check out? The Mantra is once againplease DONT BE SANTUSHT! Conclusion: Energy Management is not a job for a designated group of professionals given with the responsibility to increase efficiency. When every individual handling energy starts looking for holes to plug the controllable losses, there would be tangible result. Therefore the trend setting approach for every operators of a
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steam generating system would be See money while seeing fuel, or stack gas, or steam.. always try to identify the controllable losses. and never, ever be SANTUSHT with the existing practice