Save Money & Reduce Emissions – No Catches!
With escalating fuel prices and global pressure to reduce carbon emissions there has never been a better time to look for ways to improve combustion. By improving combustion efficiency, fuel consumption will be reduced significantly. A reduction in fuel usage will result not only in cost savings but also reduce the amount of CO2 exhausted into the atmosphere.
ETC has the answer!
By installing an electronic burner management control system such as the ETC6000 significant improvements can be made to combustion efficiency and overall boiler operation.
Conventional burner controls on large commercial and industrial steam and hot water boilers use mechanical linkages and characterising cams to position fuel valves and air dampers across the firing range. Mechanical systems suffer from both backlash and hysteresis; this results in inaccuracies in the fuel/air ratio and consequently inefficient combustion. Commissioning engineers will be aware of these shortcomings and when manually setting up the combustion curve, by adjusting the characterising cam, will tend to err on the side of caution and set a ‘safe’ amount of excess air. Although too much excess air has a cooling effect on the boiler furnace and tubes it is the lesser of two evils in that too little air results in incomplete combustion. Symptoms of incomplete combustion include carbon monoxide production and un-burnt fuel particles being either deposited inside the boiler or exhausted to atmosphere.
An electronic control system, such as the ETC6000, uses servo motors to accurately position all the fuel valves and air dampers. These servo motors all work independently of each other and have a repeatable resolution of +/- 0.1º over a 90º stroke. Just eliminating backlash and hysteresis can make fuel savings up to of 1% Furthermore, electronic control removes the limitations of mechanical cams and linkages making it possible to have the low fire setting below the ignition point which may increase the turndown of the boiler.
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This is significant in that boiler cycling can be reduced. Every time a burner is restarted a purge is required to take place before ignition can commence. Purging wastes large amounts of energy as the cold air used to purge the combustion space and flue of combustible gases cools the boiler down. The forced draught fan also uses a large amount of electrical energy during every purge. Reducing turndown can potentially save 5% in fuel costs.From a cost saving viewpoint this is only the start. Further savings are possible by considering the following options:
Typical fuel/cost savings of 10% can be achieved on a boiler installation when upgrading from mechanical to electronic control.
For more information contact:
ETC Sales on +44 (0)1273 480667
sales@energytechnologycontrol.com |
