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Energy GENERATION | EFFICIENCY | TECHNOLOGY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 | VOLUME 13, NO. 7
Features
10 Turbines and Non-Traditional Fuels Moving the green effort forward By William Atkinson 20 Quiet Quest Sound solutions for noise concerns and emissions reduction By Ed Ritchie
38 What’s New in Drives, Pumps, and Motors? Bringing greater efficiency to industry By Lyn Corum 44 Secure Power Load bank, ATS, and UPS applications By Carol Brzozowski
30 Boilers and Efficiency More sophisticated options for industrial and other commercial users By Dan Rafter
NOISE pg 20
BOILERS pg 30
TURBINES pg 10
MOTORS pg 38
LOAD BANKS pg 44
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 | VOLUME 13, NO. 7
pg 52
pg 50
Departments
Editor’s Comments 8 Guest Commentary: Industrial Phase In 50 Project Profile: New Central Utility Plant at LAX 52 Products & Services Directory 55 Project Profile: Miura Boilers at Duke University 56 Spotlight 57 Advertiser’s Index 57 Reader Profile 58 Cover photo: Wikimedia
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EDITOR’S COMMENTS Nancy Gross
B
iStock/sandsun
oilers might be some of the unsung heroes of the civilized world. Even though some are substantial in size, they almost seem too basic to say much about, and yet they are crucial to comfort, hygiene, industrial processes, sterilization, food preparation, and power generation—all kinds of activities discovered to be possible because of hot water and steam. So, as simple as heating water may seem, there are many subtleties involved due to the material a boiler is fabricated from; flow in and out; temperature, pumps; heat exchangers; and maintenance of these ubiquitous, essential machines, which are given a good discussion in our “Boilers and Efficiency” article (page 30). Steven Johnson, in the book How We Got to Now, Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, calls a milestone on Earth just over 100 years ago as big as any in human evolution. It would have been notable to any outsider watching from space, “arguably the single most significant change in the planet’s history since the Chicxulub asteroid collided with Earth sixty-five million years ago.” He is speaking of the expansion of artificial lighting, and, importantly, boilers had part in letting there be light. Thomas Edison made lasting impacts when he got electric light produced in London, and then Lower Manhattan. According to Wikipedia: “The first public power station was the Edison Electric Light Station, built in London at 57, Holborn Viaduct, which started operation in January 1882. . . . A Babcock and Wilcox boiler—which used water filled tubes and nucleate boiling to generate steam more safely than either under-fire or fire-tube boilers—powered a 125-horsepower steam engine that drove a 27-ton generator called ‘Jumbo’ after the celebrated elephant” ( http://bitly/1NfMNd3 ). The power station lit up the lamps on Holborn Viaduct, as well as the City Temple, the Old Bailey, and the Telegraph Office. The Pearl Street Station is considered the first central power plant in the US, built by Edison Illuminating Company and operational in September 1882. It provided light to 82 customers, relying on coal-fired boilers and reciprocating steam engines to run its generators, called dynamos.
Boilers helped make power and electric light possible, and the value of electric lighting drove demand for additional power stations. Some—including Pearl Street—were cogeneration plants that brought district heating, distributing steam to local manufacturers and warming buildings. One hundred and thirty years down the road we live lives that are fully powered, well lit, and comfortable, due to sophisticated thermal control of our environments. The technology, commerce, and recreation that appeared because of the original framework could not have been imagined. However, how we produce and use power and manage equipment, including boilers and other HVAC components and lights, now takes into account a changing world. From November 30 to December 11, just after this issue of Business Energy is released, the 2015 United Nations Climate Conference will take place in Paris. An energy and environment story in the New York Times on October 16, “Oil and Gas Companies Make Statement in Support of UN Climate Goals” ( http://nyti.ms/ 1WdOZWf ), lists 10 of the world’s big energy companies, primarily European and including BP Oil, publicly acknowledging that their industry needs to help address climate change and stave off a rise in atmospheric temperature of 3.6°F. There are a lot of interesting things going on with climate and energy efficiency in mind. Our “Turbines and Non-Traditional Fuels” article (page 10) looks at cases where turbines are being used as parts of larger renewable and environment-conscious projects involving solar arrays, waste gas, biomass, and waste coal. Cogeneration, something which languished for many decades, has been making a strong comeback, and we discuss this in a sidebar to our “Quiet Quest” article (“Thinking Inside the Box”, page 20). And, don’t miss “Industrial Phase In” (page 38), with specifics on where industry will find the most value if switching to LED lighting in stages. The consensus has been coming that, while power is needed and wanted (we will continue to boil water, turn on lamps, and condition our spaces), we will also adapt and innovate for a sustainable future. BE
Boiling Water in Changing Times
Editorial Advisory Board David Baldwin
J. Michael Edwards
Jim Moxley
David Van Holde
Michael Zimmer
President
Principal
Aquarian Technology Systems Lexington, OH
Power Recruiting Group Houston, TX
Assistant Vice President of Facility Management
Healthsouth Corp. Birmingham, AL
Senior Engineer & Project Manager SBW Consulting Inc. Seattle, WA
Executive in Residence & Senior Fellow Ohio University Athens, OH
Jeff Dummermuth
Justin Fortmeyer, P.E.
Director, Energy and Engineering Big Lots Stores Inc. Columbus, OH
Project Manager Patton Air Conditioning Fresno, CA
James W. “JT” Thielman, CFE
Barry Worthington
Director of Operations–SMG SeaGate Convention Centre/ Huntington Center Arena Toledo, OH
Executive Director, US Energy Association Washington DC
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Elliott Group
TURBINES
Turbines
and Non-Traditional Fuels
I
MOVING THE GREEN EFFORT FORWARD BY WILLIAM ATKINSON n recent years, turbine manufacturers have been taking a number of steps to make their equipment more environmentally friendly in terms of improved efficiency and performance, reduced emissions, and such. However, what is even bigger news is how turbines are being used as parts of larger renewable and environmentconscious projects. Examples include their use in creating energy from solar arrays—from waste gas, from biomass, and from waste coal.
Turbines and Energy From Solar Arrays These days, turbines are being used
more and more as integral components of solar generation and storage projects. One example is the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. Located in California’s Mojave Desert, and coowned by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy, this is currently the largest solar generating system in the US. The energy generated at the site—which is sufficient to support the energy needs of about 140,000 homes on average, and double that when operating at maximum capacity—is being sold through power purchase agreements to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric. The clean generation makes it possible to avoid the emissions of 450,000 tons of
carbon per year. A significant part of the energy generation process at Ivanpah is three Siemens SST-900 turbines, which have a total capacity of 392 MW. Each of the three specially designed solar towers at the site holds a 2,100-ton Riley Power boiler that directs steam to one of the Siemens turbine generators, which is located at ground level. A Siemens announcement noted, “The SST-900 turbine is ideally suited for deployment in solar thermal power plants. It is known for its fast startup and shutdown capability, and the fact that it can very flexibly track the respective operating conditions of solar thermal power plants. Steam reheat enhances
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the efficiency of the turbine, and thus of the entire power plant.” And there are other solar projects using turbines. One is the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Tonapah, NV, which is owned and operated by SolarReserve’s Tonapah Solar Energy LLC. When the project goes online, either later this year or in 2016, the power will be sold to NV Energy. The 540-foot tower, toward which the solar panels are directed is designed to superheat salt, from 550°F to 1,050°F, and then provide thermal storage with an efficiency rate of 99%. The “active” component of the system is a 110-MW steam turbine manufactured by Alstom.
at industrial facilities or landfills. “Our technology is actually a replacement for the combuster of a turbine, which is what actually generates the power,” says Castro. “As such, we work with turbine companies to interface systems, which convert the heat from our vessels into electricity. We work with these companies to come up with versions of their turbines that, instead of having combusters, have our pressure vessel generate the heat.” Then, the rest of the turbine does what it was
originally designed to do, which is take the heat and convert it into power. Here is the process: Emissions (low-BTU methane and oxygen) enter a heated pressure vessel, where a chemical reaction begins. Initially, the pressure vessel is heated with a small propane tank and burner, but these are not necessary once the heat-generating process to be described begins. The pressurized air reacts with the low-energy gas to release heat. A ceramic material retains and conducts the heat and sends it as
Turbines and Energy From Waste Gas Another way turbines are benefiting the environment is as part of a method of transforming waste gasses into clean power. One example of this is the process created by Ener-Core, which has a technology that can capture waste gas and, using turbines, convert it into clean energy. “The process is fairly simple,” says Alain Castro, CEO. “Oxidation is a chemical reaction that happens to many compounds.” For example, waste gasses oxidize, but very slowly in the standard conditions of the atmosphere. In fact, it takes some greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide and methane, between 12 and 20 years to oxidize. “However, if you can increase the temperature and pressure of the environment, almost everything will oxidize faster,” he says. Ener-Core’s technology, which focuses on low-BTU, high-contaminant waste gasses that would normally go to some form of emission destruction equipment such as flaring, sends these gasses into a pressure vessel, where the pressure is generally four to six times higher than the atmosphere with slightly elevated temperatures. “We have found the ideal combination of pressure and temperature at which waste gasses will oxidize in two or three seconds and generate heat in the process,” says Castro. Below 30%, methane can no longer be used to run an engine. Below 5 to 15%, it doesn’t even combust. EnerCore’s pressure vessels can generate electricity at as low as just below 2% methane. This eliminates the need for flaring Business Energy November | December 2015 11
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heated air to a turbine, and the heated air drives the turbine. A generator then converts the mechanical energy from the turbine rotation to clean electrical power. Carbon dioxide, much less problematic than methane in terms of trapping heat, and water are released into the air. Ener-Core also works with steam boiler companies to interface with their systems, which convert the heat from Ener-Core’s vessels into steam. “The result, in both cases, is the ability to produce baseload energy,â€? says Castro. “Unlike solar and wind—which are intermittent—our energy is being generated 24/7, year-round.â€? What do customers do with the energy? It depends on their speciďŹ c situation. “We believe that most of our industrial clients, such as ethanol plants and petrochemical reďŹ neries, will have onsite use for the energy, since the cost to generate this power onsite from waste gasses is less expensive than purchasing it from the local utility,â€? says Castro. “Probably the only clients that will sell power back to
“The combination of reducing harmful exhaust emissions and generating clean energy from waste gases is a truly significant opportunity for many industrial companies.â€? the grid are those that don’t have a need for the power onsite, such as landďŹ lls.â€? The Process in Action Currently, Ener-Core is working with customers at two different power station levels, and thus the company uses turbines from two different manufacturers. “When we work with smaller power stations—which are 250 kilowatts and 333 kilowatts—we use FlexEnergy turbines,â€? he says. Here, Ener-Core utilizes either its 250-kW Ener-Core Powerstation, or its 333-kW Ener-Core Power Oxidizer. To
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date, it has done two projects at this level. One was a DOD one-year pilot project. “The Department of Defense has a goal of eventually getting all military bases to be 100% grid-independent,â€? says Castro. “They were interested in our technology, because it is baseload, rather than intermittent.â€? The one-year pilot project took place from mid-2012 to mid-2013 at Fort Benning, GA. This base was selected because of its proximity to an old landďŹ ll. The project was a success, being able to generate enough renewable energy to power 250–300 homes. The energy that
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was produced contained near-zero emissions of NOx. “Since we were able to prove the reliability of the technology with this project, we then began to commercialize it,” he says. This led to the second project, a landfill in Schinnen, Holland, owned by Attero, the largest waste management company in Netherlands, which had just recently closed. “When you close a landfill and stop replenishing it with new waste, the quality of the gas goes way down, so most landfill projects that are generating power are active landfills or ones that were just recently closed,” says Castro. “After five or 10 years, you usually can’t generate any more power.” However, inactive landfills continue to emit methane for 50 to 60 years. The Schinnen landfill was producing methane below 30%, on which conventional gas turbines could not efficiently operate. “Attero saw our technology as a way to monetize gasses from this inactive landfill,” he says. The operation got up-and-running in mid-2014 and has already been a success. Some benefits include complete flare shutdown, the ability to process methane levels as low as 1.5%, and less then 1-ppm NOx emissions. “Attero is selling the power to a local utility,” says Castro. For larger projects, Ener-Core entered into an agreement with Dresser-Rand in late 2014. “The agreement involves the right to commercialize our technology with Dresser-Rand gas turbines for projects ranging from one megawatt to four megawatts,” says Castro. Currently with these1 projects, Ener-Core is installing its Ad_BizEnergy_Airius.ai 10/7/2015 2:25:58 PM
2-MW Ener-Core Powerstation, coupled with Dresser-Rand’s specially designed KG2-3GEF 2-MW turbine generators. In a Dresser-Rand press release, Dan Levin, vice president, environmental solutions, notes: “The combination of reducing harmful exhaust emissions and generating clean energy from waste gases is a truly significant opportunity for many industrial companies. While most companies are focused on waste gas capture and destruction, Ener-Core’s unique gradual oxidation technology, combined with our gas turbines, will enable industrial clients across a wide range of industries to utilize their industrial waste gases to generate clean energy.” One success story is the installation at Pacific Ethanol in Stockton, CA. “This was really the first opportunity to show that we could scale the technology up from relatively small power capacities to utility-scale power capacities,” says Levin. For this project, Ener-Core developed, built, and installed two 2-MW Ener-Core Powerstations, which connected with Dresser-Rand’s KG2-3GEF 2-MW turbine generators. The 3.5MW combined cogeneration system is replacing Pacific Ethanol’s existing use of thermal oxidizers. Pacific Ethanol expects the system to be operational by early or mid 2016. Pacific Ethanol will use the energy that is being generated to reduce its own energy bill. “The Stockton cogeneration system will replace most of the electricity we currently purchase from the grid and will reduce our energy costs by an estimated three to four million dollars per year,” says Neil Koehler, president and CEO of Pacific Ethanol, in a January 2015 press
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Elliott Group
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release. “The system is one of the most advanced cogeneration systems on the market, and will more efficiently deliver steam and electricity to the plant while lowering emissions. Rather than destroying waste gases, we will reuse them as a source of process energy, reducing costs and improving profitability.” Ener-Core’s most recent project is at the Santiago Canyon Landfill in Orange County, CA, decommissioned in 2004. Currently, the landfill ends up flaring about 1,000 cubic feet of methane every minute, which is generated by 23.7 million cubic
yards of trash. “We expect to be able to continue generating power from this landfill for another 20 to 30 years,” says Castro. The project is expected to begin generating electricity in 2017, and Orange County is expected to be able to generate about $250,000 worth of electricity the first year. Turbines and Energy From Biomass The Elliott Group manufactures steam turbines and steam turbine generator sets, as well as compressors, power recovery expanders, and control systems. In terms of turbines, one stronghold for the company is Indonesia and Malaysia. “Almost all of our applications there are for palm oil mills,” says Scott Wilshire, manager, power generation business. “They have no source of electricity other than the turbines that we provide.” According to Wilshire, there are a few companies in the US that claim to be “zero to landfill.” However, these palm oil companies truly are. “They literally use every ounce of the palm fruits,” he says. They burn the spent carcasses of palm oil bunches and fruits to fire the boilers that make the steam to generate the power. Then, when they are done with it, they burn it again and make fertilizer out of it. The company’s turbines are also helping the environment in the US. According to Wilshire, the US power grid is migrating from a centralized model in which power is generated at large plants and then moved via transmission and distribution lines to where it is being used, to a model in which power is generated closer to the need, including a lot of actual onsite
Business Energy November | December 2015 15
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Ft. Benning generation. While there are a lot of options demonstration for onsite generation around the country, project one inexpensive and convenient option for certain companies is biomass. “In terms of onsite generation, we have done a lot of biomass projects for customers that manufacture products from wood and end up with a lot of wood scraps, shavings, and chips,” says Wilshire. “These companies burn the scraps, shavings, and chips to make steam in a boiler that generates some of their own electricity.” For some of these companies, the decision to integrate biomass may be an environmental initiative, but for most it is likely an economic issue. The reasons: Not only is it less expensive to generate their own power than to purchase it from the grid, but expenses decrease even more when these companies no longer have to pay someone to haul away the wood scraps, shavings, and chips when the piles become too high, something piles of residual coal that accumulated over the years,” says they had to do in the past. Wilshire. “It is a source of pollution, contaminating the groundwater, and, until recently, hasn’t been economically Turbines and Energy From Waste Coal worth anyone doing anything with it.” The Elliott Group is also involved in another “green” initiaHowever, the company now has a customer in western tive. “Western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia Pennsylvania, called Energy Management Concepts Inc., are populated with thousands of old coal mines, which have that offers to haul the old coal away and use it in boilers that cleanly generate steam and electricity. Energy Management Concepts provides a unique combination of heating, cooling, and electricity generation using hybrid boiler systems that burn a variety of alternate fuels ENERGY SHOWS including waste coal, which have a track record of providing %26721 6($77/( '& the lowest overall long-term costs for customers. The hybrid state-of-the-art renewable energy systems ensure operational reliability, which provides insulation from power outages, while also allowing environmentally friendly, locally based alternative fuel resources to be consumed, benefiting both the March 9-10, 2016 customer and the environment. Hynes Convention Center One of the company’s projects is the State Correction Boston, MA Institute-Greensburg, in western Pennsylvania, which had been www.globalconevent.com built in the late 1960s. Following an earlier successful project for another state correction institution, Energy Management Concepts was approached by the director of the PennsylvaMay 25-26, 2016 Washington State Convention nia Department of Corrections in 2004 to provide a similar Center, Seattle, WA waste coal-fired cogeneration response for Greensburg, for www.energyevent.com steam and electricity. “The facility’s steam host, which was the local county, told them that they were no longer going to provide them with steam, so they asked us to build a plant for them similar to the one we had done previously,” says David Goldsmith, president of Energy Management Concepts. Based on the savings the project could generate with waste coal as the main fuel, and with cogeneration to offset elecPresented by tricity purchases, Energy Management Concepts designed a September 21-22, 2016 Walter E. Washington Convention Center system that was approved by the state. The new system signifiWashington, DC cantly exceeds state and federal environmental regulations. www.energycongress.com The system utilizes a fully-automated mini-ICFB (internally-circulating fluidized-bed) boiler design, incorporating
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new technology that provides a remote operational capability simultaneously,” says Goldsmith. in conjunction with the need for only one-person operation The system also provides continuous onsite and remote on a daily shift basis. The system contains one 15,000-pounds- monitoring of the facility’s operation, and recording of per-hour mini-CFB coal boiler, with two 10,000 pounds-pernecessary historical data. The Web-based server allows authohour oil-fired emergency backup boilers. Two steam-driven rized engineers to carefully monitor the ongoing technical Elliott turbines generate electricity to be fed into the prison’s operations of the main coal boilers and the backup oil-fired electrical distribution systems. boilers from a remote location. The system provides detailed “When I needed the steam turbines, I went to Elliott, reports, along with analysis and recommendations to facilibecause I had been using their turbines for other projects for tate optimized reliability and operating efficiency. several years, and believe that they produced the best steam As Goldsmith sees it, this new boiler system may become turbine in the small range,” says Goldsmith. “We have had a the standard that other nationwide coal-producing commugreat relationship over the years.” nities and state agencies emulate. With energy costs of waste The system is able to burn low-grade, low-cost waste coal coal/biomass being less than 30% of the cost of gas and/or and blended biomass simultaneously, with a delivered price oil (with the forecasted future prices even higher), the ecoof under $2 per MMBTU. In sum, the system can heat and nomics are appealing. cool for far less expense than high-grade coal, gas or oil, and In sum, the overall concept of a privatized thermal energy just as cleanly as natural gas. “The cost for premium-grade system that is owned, financed, and operated by a single coal is about $7 MMBTU, and delivered gas is $6 MMBTU entity outside the responsibility of the host facility offers today,” says Goldsmith. multiple benefits for the customer. The system began operating in 2005. “Our technology “Our next goal is to improve the technology to produce burns waste coal cleanly, with very low zero emissions, and will be first plant emissions,” he says. in the world that burn products to proAs a way to meet some stringent duce zero emissions,” he says. BE and specific state environmental testing cycle criteria, the system also burns William Atkinson specializes in www.businessenergy.net a minimum 15% of waste wood. “Our topics related to utilities and technology allows them to be burned infrastructure.
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ntrusive noise is a growing concern for both the public and private sector these days. If the power equipment rattles, clanks, and booms loudly, there will likely be complaints—or worse: fines and citations. Consider this: according to the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse ( www.nonoise.org ), 13 states have noise pollution laws, and five provide model ordinances for municipalities to follow. These laws can be quite rigid. For example, the City of Lyme, CT, passed an ordinance that makes any noise above 55 decibels (dB) during the day and 45 dB at night a violation, punishable by a fine of $90 per offense. In Texas, the state law says that noise is too loud if it exceeds 85 dB at the property line. So, listen up. You need to make some sound decisions, and we have some experts and resources that can help.
Attenuation, Ventilation, Safety It’s not surprising that power generation equipment has been identified as a source of sound pollution by many government agencies, considering the fact that distributed energy use continues to grow in urban environments. The result, according to Mike Witkowski, COO of enclosure manufacturer Pritchard Brown LLC, in Baltimore, MD, is that engineers are finding their projects often require a high degree of acoustic customization. “The ordinances for sound attenuation are getting more
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BY ED RITCHIE
stringent, and at the same time, people have less space to dedicate,” says Witkowski. “Europe is well ahead of us in regard to their requirements for sound attenuation, because they are much more crowded, and they’ve been on top of one another for much longer. Here, the joke used to be that if you want quieter generator sets, you get a bigger piece of land. But that’s changing, and the installations now are so much more power-dense. It’s not uncommon to find big data centers with 20 to 30 megawatts of generator capacity located in a giant generator farm, and the sound from them is substantial. So, designers need to be more creative with mitigating this noise, yet maintaining the proper airflow and fitting within the space constraints of the site.” When it comes to the physics and science for sound attenuation, he notes that the solutions are fairly straightforward, even though new products and materials that help absorb sound are finding their way to the marketplace. “It still comes down to getting creative with moving air. It would be incredibly easy to attenuate generators that didn’t need 100,000 cubic feet per minute of air. Just put a massive box around it and it will be quiet, but the volume of cooling air required means large devices to acoustically treat the ventilation air.” Another consideration is the fact that mufflers for exhaust are different from air handling silencers. There is some new technology in combustion exhaust silencers, but emissions
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regulations are getting more stringent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now you have devices that limit the emissions, and they make it more challenging to treat the acoustics,â&#x20AC;? says Witkowski. Such high-performance systems typically require the best quality. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about premium materials and attention to detail,â&#x20AC;? adds Rick Grambo, vice president of sales and engineering at Pritchard Brown. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So, ďŹ t, ďŹ nish, and service after the sale are critical, because
often youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re well into the project and changes are required.â&#x20AC;? He continues: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Projects rarely go as planned. Simple things such as equipment that isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the size expected, or no equipment, shows up. Or, an engineer calls with a new requirement. Typically, the customers are not the end-users. They are the suppliers of the equipment inside the enclosure, and at the beginning of the project, they give us information on air requirements, space,
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dimensions, noise signature, and what the customer wants in terms of site installation, such as a roof where it might need to be assembled in pieces. Safety is critically important, so we design a unit that is safe for the people working inside, in terms of space and shelter, and lighting and egress. These are normally emergency power situations, and anybody working on it could be there during a storm or other emergency situation.â&#x20AC;? For enclosures, there are safety and electrical code clearances from the National Electrical Code, and other building codes. But clearances aside, if the air handling function is not designed properly, it can create a negative pressure or vacuum in the enclosure when the generator set is running, leading to difďŹ culty opening the doors. Finally, Witkowski stresses the importance of having engineers think about the enclosure issues at the very beginning of the project. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When there are sound attenuation and fuel storage and emission controls involved, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very important to get the manufacturer involved early so subjects such as limitations can be discussed. I get calls from engineers, and they say their project is 90% done and an intern got the specs out of the manufacturerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s catalog for a one-megawatt generator, but it makes too much noise and sits at the property line. If we were involved at the beginning, we could have developed a solution that would have been less complicated and less expensive than addressing it in the ďŹ eld.â&#x20AC;?
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Designers need to be more creative with mitigating noise, yet maintaining the proper airflow and fitting within the space constraints of the site.â&#x20AC;?
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Markets and Orders If the project is fueled by natural gas, planners should also expect longer lead times for materials such as stainless steel, according to Dale Gremaux, sales marketing manager at Harco Manufacturing, Newberg, OR. Harco manufactures heavy-duty commercial exhaust silencers and supporting products, and Gremaux notes that natural gas is different from diesel. “It burns hotter,” says Gremaux. “With all the growth in natural gas, stainless steel requires longer lead times, up to six to eight weeks. So it does help to bring the exhaust and emissions control people into the design process early.” Gremaux has found that Harco’s customers are bringing in projects that are located in more noise-sensitive locations. “It’s getting more common in these kind of sensitive environments and there are more projects now. Also, because the power grid is overwhelmed and not getting any better, we’re seeing more and more of these emergency power projects that need to be available and ready.” Parallel grid operations and peak shaving are also growing, and Gremaux observes that the electrical utility has put up 30 installations in the area for peak shaving. “In some situations, such as universities, they are finding that they can make power more economical than the utility,
and what that means to us is that these aren’t generators located out in the middle of nowhere,” says Gremaux.“They are downtown or in places that have sound requirements and they want them quiet, along with being hidden from sight. In a situation like that we’re talking about 25 to 65 decibels, and sometimes it’s requirements such as 75 decibels at three meters from the source. Nine times out of 10 you have to put it together and deal with space challenges. Even a lot of the hospitals and data centers are putting generator sets into an enclosure and maybe putting them on a roof. So, whatever it is we’re making to attenuate the noise, it has to fit in that box.” In such environments, heat is often a factor. “You do have heat, and it’s critical in the design, especially if we know it’s going inside the enclosure; so, it requires additional insulation. We do quite a bit of computer simulation and testing, and we have our computer aided design and a plasma table as well. This is a computer-run plasma cutting machine. The difference between a water jet and a plasma cutter is that the waterjet can cut through a piece of steel over foot thick. While the plasma can’t do that, it cuts very fast. So if we need a bunch of components cut, we can maximize that sheet of steel quickly. We can create parts faster, and in certain instances we might save three weeks if we had to get some American-made flanges. With the new equipment and growing market, we added 15,000 square feet of manufacturing space to satisfy the demand.” Sensitive environments, such as hospitals, have long been a market driver for the industry. For example, in 2009, Maxim Silencers, Stafford, TX, released new models with higher attenuation to meet industry needs. The new models included the Hospital Plus Grade M62 (35–50 dBA), Hospital Plus Grade Spark Arresting MSA55 (35–50 dBA), and Hospital Grade low-pressure drop MT52 (35–42 dBA). Currently, the company’s most efficient products are its chamber type silencers, which provide the best noise control across the entire audible range. The basic design incorporates non-resonant side tube arrangements to permit passage of the exhaust gases from one
24 www.BusinessEnergy.net
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When you need to get it done, call the experts with the biggest tool box. Sunbelt Rentals Pump & Power Services provides innovative rental solutions for a wide range of equipment needs. Ranging from 20 kW to 2,000 kW capabilities, our power generation fleet includes towable and industrial diesel generators, as well as a variety of fuel tank sizes and generator accessories. Whether you need to provide temporary electrical loads to field test a generator or supply emergency back-up power, we provide uninterrupted, temporary power solutions for all of your project needs. For unmatched 24/7 service and support and guaranteed one-hour emergency response, contact the experts at Sunbelt Rentals.
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chamber to another. The design is also flexible and can be configured with side inlet and outlet exhaust connections. When hospital space is limited, Maxim can provide compact chamber silencers, engineered to give critical to “hospital” grade attenuation, in minimal spaces. Dual inlets and other custom designs can be easily incorporated, and the low temperature design reduces skin temperature, plus radiated noise as well. As the industry expands, some companies are looking to acquisitions to have the products to satisfy the market’s demands. For example, Universal Acoustic & Emission Technologies, Stoughton, WI—a manufacturer of solutions for noise control, emissions, and air filtration— acquired Ojibway Enclosure Systems, Janesville, WI—manufacturer of enclosures and packager of generator sets for power generation systems. Ojibway also provides laser cutting, welding, Installing onsite standby power on rooftops or mezzanines can free up critical space. and forming of a variety of metal products, and These sound-attenuated, 1-MW packages were designed to be rigged to the roof while meeting the building codes, noise ordinances, and site constraints of the facility. they’re active in the installation of generator sets in the field. With the growth of onsite power systems on the rise, Firwin, a company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Ojibway and Universal have supplied common customers, is another resource for removable insulation blankets and including engine distributors that need silencers or emissions heat shields for diesel, gas, and steam engines. These blankets treatment products, as well as data centers, hospitals, and will cover engine exhaust manifolds, turbos, exhaust piping, other large-scale facilities wanting complete power generation flexes, bellows, purifier, and silencer systems. The company’s packages. removable insulation blankets provide heat and noise control Universal’s engineers focus on the demands for higher performing sound attenuating products, and have seen many changes. Traditionally, a 25-dBA reduction could meet UniverQuiet, But Not Too Quiet sal’s customers’ requirements, but as power systems become Prime office space takes noise control common near more residential and public locations, the in new directions. requirements of designers often includes the use of silencers, which are typically integrated into the enclosure. More Applications and Solutions Sometimes the source of noise isn’t stationary. For example, mobile generators are finding widespread adoption for emergencies such as natural disasters. To prevent generator noise from aggravating a bad situation, Girtz Industries, Monticello, IN, offers its Z-CUBE line of containerized industrial equipment for mobile applications. The Girtz Z-CUBE ISO container-based packages balance low noise, ease of service, and durability. Three sizes of containers accommodate gensets from 4,00 kW to 2,250 kW. All packages utilize a similar mechanical and electrical design resulting in a consistent look and feel for the operators and service technicians. If a mobile application is far enough away from a soundsensitive environment, engineers may opt for a removable, reusable blanket, such as the Insultech Blanket Insulation line of products, from Shannon Enterprises of WNY Inc., Tonawanda, NY. Shannon’s blanket insulation is design engineered for treatment of machinery and process piping for both thermal and acoustic performance. Products include thermal blankets, acoustic and heat shields, rain shields, and passive fire protection blanket insulation.
Pritchard Brown
NOISE
T
he commercial building sector has seen a steady rise in the use of distributed energy. Whether the need is for energy security, participation in a demand-response program, or as a strategy for sustainability, distributed energy projects are playing a role. But the noise of a generator makes special demands upon architects and designers. Distributed energy fits well with some major trends in office designs, according to Ethan Salter, PE, LEED AP, a principal acoustical consultant at Charles M. Salter Associates Inc., San Francisco, CA. “We do see a lot more engine generators and emergency generators in buildings and even in residential areas,” says Salter. “With office buildings and intelligent buildings and 24/7 server rooms, they’ve got to have power, and whether they’re in the basement or on the roof, engineers have to make sure that noises and vibrations are controlled. Some options are springs or rubber isolators.” And it’s not just mechanical generators. With solar PV, inverters can buzz and cause problems. Also, the equipment’s location in the building has to be considered. If you have generators on the roof, you can avoid putting them above quiet office space. Salter notes that his firm gets hired by customers or landlords to make sure the landlord is providing a building that people want to rent.
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at temperatures up to 2,000°F. We’ve talked about insulation, but how about isolation? It’s certainly a tool in any sound engineer’s toolbox. And it can be a very simple process to install. For example, Soundown, Fort Lauderdale, FL, offers its line of type BRB mounts (Machinery Mounts 50, 60, 80, and 110). These are rubber antivibration elements that support mechanical sources of sound. Their tallheight profiles produce large deflections, low natural frequencies, and vibration isolation is the result. Intrusive sound and vibration can be detrimental to indoor work environments, says David Lehrer, LEED AP, Center for the Built Environment, UC Berkeley. “The center studies indoor environmental quality and we’ve done surveys of about 1000 buildings. We look at a lot of different characteristics in an office, such as air quality, thermal comfort, acoustics, layout, maintenance, and lighting. Acoustics is the one thing that people are least happy with—after thermal comfort. Buildings do have to contend with acoustical issues, such as a chiller on the roof. Those can be very loud, and they have to be isolated.” The Center’s study is available for use by design and engineering professionals ( www.cbe.berkeley.edu/research/survey.htm ). Noise and emissions often go hand-in-hand with power projects, and the environment and generator designs have added new levels of complexity for noise control systems manufacturers. But, new technology is catching up. For example, Miratech, in Tulsa, OK, supplies emission solutions for stationary natural gas and diesel reciprocating engines, and designs from the company’s customers reflect the fact that noise and emissions control are important. Miratech’s customers are
As firms, such as Google, redefine office environments, it’s not unusual to offices with TV stations, studios, music practice rooms, gyms, or sensitive conferencing facilities. “Some companies desire to have 100% uptime,” says Salter. “Or they may be working with locations in China, so you have an office going round the clock, and they need a generator. But landlords don’t know if a tenant plans on putting in a kitchen or conference room, yet they need to have a baseline so they can charge higher rents. For example, customers based here in California demand highquality, and the landlord needs to meet all kinds of city and state requirements.” With more companies adopting open office floor plans, Salter explains that a new problem arises, and actually requires the addition of noise. “It’s called sound masking or white noise, and it has become more important, because now offices are almost too quiet. Thanks to passive ventilation and an open plan and energy-efficient buildings, we’re seeing situations where there are distractions from things such as the clicking of keyboards. Also, video conferencing can be quite distracting, and there are issues of speech privacy. White noise can minimize those distractions.” In such cases, designers have found that generic, undefined background noises, such as those from a generator, are not as distracting as conversations or other specific noises that workers can understand.
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now seeing that stiff regulations in some states have made pollution control a critical issue. The state of California is a good example, and Miratech recently announced that it received CARB Level 3 Plus (California Air Resources Board) Conditional Verification for its new diesel particulate filter system technology called the LTR (Low Temperature Regeneration). The LTR is used by stationary diesel engine owners/operators and consists of a single housing assembly
containing a DOC (Diesel Oxidation Catalyst) and DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) modules. For noise control, the LTR product line also includes options for integrated silencing and an electronic monitor/data logger/and alarm. With higher standards and stricter regulations for noise popping up nationwide, companies are often required to monitor and test their noise attenuation products. Not surprisingly, there’s a wide range of sound monitor-
Thinking Inside the Box
From enclosures to packaged CHP systems
T
here are some big changes going on that are making small, 10-MW-and-under, Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants attractive for facilities such as commercial office buildings, universities, schools, small factories, and hospitals. This is a shift from decades past, and shows maturation in the technology and the market. One company, Professional Power Products Inc. (3Pi), is poised to meet the growing demand now that they have moved from the outside in, from a manufacturer of weather-protected sound-attenuated enclosures for power products, to a provider of packaged CHP. Tom Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer since March of 2015, and Dan White who has been with the company since 2003 and is now Director of CHP Operations, discuss the path forward for both CHP and 3Pi, which was recently acquired by Power Solutions International (PSI), a company with over 30 years of experience in engine and power solutions for the industrial and on-road markets. Smith says, “Now that 3Pi is part of Power Solutions International, we have the strength, talent, and financial backing to take an alreadystrong business to the next level.” That next level is riding the wave of change that includes more local, state, and federal support of cogeneration. The Obama Administration issued an executive order to accelerate the advancement of CHP, increasing it by 40 GW over the next five years. Smith says, “It isn’t legislation, but it is a target—that’s 40,000 megawatts of new capacity—a very, very big growth piece and a commitment to the industry at the federal level.” Tens of millions of dollars of incentives are available from agencies like New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The Department of Energy (DOE) is implementing a Packaged CHP Accelerator Program, which is a kind of review and cataloging of pre-packaged equipment under 10 MW, which is the sweet spot of 3Pi. Smith says, “There is no entity that standardizes CHP. They have tended to be one-off projects. But the DOE accelerator program allows end users to look at systems provided by major companies like ourselves. These are substantial investments that become part of the facility for 25 to 30 years.” Most of these CHP systems are fueled by natural gas, and thus the shale revolution is another driver. By turning the natural gas into both electric power and usable thermal energy, White says, “you get 80% efficiency; a genset with no heat recovery provides fuel use effi-
ing equipment available. For example, Scantek Inc., Columbia, MD, recently launched the ScanMonitor, a Realtime Datalogger for construction and community noise monitoring. The noise monitoring system includes a sound level meter, real time datalogger, communications, enclosure and software to process. Data is stored on high capacity local memory and also can be transmitted in real time by GSM, WiFi, or Ethernet connections. Power
ciency in the mid-30% range.” Because of these efficiencies, when it comes to commercial buildings, CHP can help in attaining Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design (LEED) points. “We are targeting the part of the market where there is the biggest need, where there are high electricity prices and demand for new capacity,” says Smith. The utility grid is challenged in our times, and these distributed resources help meet the growing demand for clean reliable energy, which reduces the need for new power plants from being built, and compensates for those being decommissioned. Hurricane Sandy proved the value of distributed localized power during emergencies, as CHP plants operated during utility outages. White is part of a team of five who are focusing on the CHP market in the Philadelphia region. He says they cover everything, from “visiting sites for evaluation to engineering the products, followed by project management and field services.” A sound-attenuated, weather-protected enclosure allows for a turnkey approach where the system has already undergone sophisticated testing at the 3Pi facility, and is assembled and can be shipped efficiently. Where the logistics at a site do not permit, a plant can be “stick built”—in some cases, 3Pi is even “building units with bathrooms and conference rooms,” says Smith. “We are very experienced. We know all aspects of what it takes to make a project successful and have a ‘lessons learned manual’ that we share with our customers to make sure things are done right and mistakes that have occurred in the past are not repeated.” 3Pi’s Wisconsin facility is over 200,000 square feet with crane capacity in excess of 200 tons. “We are located near many of the major engine manufacturers. We are 200 employees strong, are ISO 9001 certified, and have the financial resources to carry out these projects as part of a public company.” The packaged CHP plants are comprised of a natural gas-fueled reciprocating engine, an alternator, ventilation equipment, the control system, and electric gear to tie into the building or grid, as well as the system to handle the rejected heat: a heat exchanger, and then either a hot water boiler to provide hot water and/or steam, or a chiller for chilled water cooling. “We are engine agnostic,” says Smith. “We have put systems together for all the major engine companies: GE Jenbacher and Waukesha, MWM from Caterpillar, Cummins, MTU, PSI, and others. The engine/alternator is the heart of the system. It is two-thirds the weight of the most packages.” CHP adoption, Smith says, “is positioned for an expansion like it’s never been!”
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Cummins offers three levels of soundattenuation, depending on model size, and enclosures are constructed of steel or aluminum, which is preferred in coastal regions or other environments where corrosion is a concern. Ultimately, we’ve looked at a broad range of products for noise control. From simple blankets, to the most sophisticated enclosures, these solutions address sound, exhaust, and safety issues. You’ll be needing these solutions,
because the issue of intrusive noise isn’t going away. In fact, according to the National Network for Public Health Law ( www.networkforphl.org ), governmental responses to noise and related issues has resulted in 135 units of government discussing whether to pass new or adjust existing laws. So, keep it quiet—they’re listening. BE Ed Ritchie writes frequently on energy and technology issues.
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can be provided by mains, batteries, or solar panels. The ScanMonitor’s data is accessible via wireless or wired LAN or GPRS. It contains an on-board Web server so sound level meter, parameters, and sampling time, are all configurable. The software is Web-based for easy learning, and data can be graphed, customized, and printed. You won’t see much of a reading on your sound level meter if you point it at the backup generator enclosures at the Water Treatment Plant for the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System in Vermillion, SD. All three gensets are protected by custom, sound-attenuated generator enclosures from Lectrus, Chattanooga, TN. These 2-MW CAT diesel generators act as standby power sources for the eight pumps at the treatment plant, and they’re also supplying power for both the facility and the local power utility during load shedding. The UL-listed genset packages each contain a generator set, exhaust system, and fuel tank. They feature a compact footprint and lowprofile design with easy servicing access to all major components. As a genset manufacturer, Cummins Power Generation Americas, Minneapolis, MN, is uniquely qualified to provide sound-attenuated and weather protective enclosures. The company tests their products at the Acoustical Testing Center (ATC) at the Fridley plant of Cummins Power Generation. Acknowledged as the largest generator set testing facility of its kind in the world, the ATC features a 13,000-squarefoot, state-of-the-art hemi-anechoic (no echo) chamber. Test results allow Cummins to meet the strictest sound requirements and provide optimum protection from inclement weather for both the power generation diesel and spark-ignited generator sets. Systems are pre-assembled, pre-integrated, and delivered as part of the entire power package, with the goal of providing fast installation time and reduced costs.
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BOILERS
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and Efficiency MORE SOPHISTICATED OPTIONS FOR INDUSTRIAL AND OTHER COMMERCIAL USERS BY DAN RAFTER
C
huck O’Donnell says it’s simple: the boilers that provide heat and hot water in factories, distribution centers, and warehouses across the United States consume less energy today because customers have long demanded more efficient versions as they look to slash their yearly expenses. Boiler manufacturers responded, continuously boosting the efficiency levels of their boilers to meet this demand.
It’s a trend that continues today, says O’Donnell, director of marketing for Laars Heating Systems, a subsidiary of Bradford White and a manufacturer of boilers, including those used by industrial customers. He explains that the movement toward efficient boilers started in the North American market in the early 2000s and has been accelerating ever since. Boilers before this time generally featured annual fuel utilization effi-
ciency—better known as AFUE—of about 80%, he adds. These boilers generally converted 80% of the fossil fuel energy that they consumed into heat. The other 20% of the fossil fuel energy they consumed each year was lost. That has changed. Today, manufacturers can provide industrial clients with boilers that boast AFUE ratings from 90 to 96%, O’Donnell says. In such high-efficiency boilers, up to 96% of the fossil fuel energy consumed annually is actually used for heat and not wasted.
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“End users absolutely want the higher-efficiency boilers today,” he says. “That has become such an important factor for all users, including industrial users.”
More Than Efficiency: Optimizing Commercial Hydronic System Performance
Saving Money One of the most exciting shifts in the science (some say art) of buildThe reason is fairly obviing system design is the ability for ous: Industrial users all parts of the system to interact, today are focused on combining as one to optimize their bottom lines. That system performance, comfort, IAQ, is nothing new. But with and energy efficiency. a national economy that Hydronic (water-based) sysis still sluggish despite tems remain at the top of the list improvements, industrial when building owners and designusers are looking even ers consider the type of system more closely at ways that delivers optimally across a to reduce their annual broad spectrum of performance expenses. variables. And the essence of perCutting labor costs formance is flow. can be painful, often “If we’re to consider system requiring several rounds function much as a cardiologist of firings or layoffs. At might study circulatory flow, we the same time, many learn that building system perindustrial users have formance is all about flow,” says already squeezed as many Richard Medairos, senior systems efficiency gains out of engineer and director of commertheir workers as humanly cial training at Taco, Inc. Medairos possible, and can no lonhas spent more than 30 years in ger ask their employees the hydronics and commercial to do more work in less building design industries, most of time. And charging more them as an independent consultfor their products? That ing engineer. could chase away their What he now sees on the potential customers. horizon is a future that opens itself When it’s time to entirely to unprecedented energy reduce annual operatefficiency, sustainability, ease of ing costs, industrial users operation, and interior comfort. often find that increasing the efficiency levels of their power, heating, and cooling systems is the least painful strategy. That’s where more efficient boilers come in. By wasting a lower amount of energy each year, these newer boilers can dramatically reduce energy bills. This is especially true for industrial users who operate large, energy-intensive spaces. “As fuel costs have gone up, people are looking to save money all around,” says O’Donnell. “Heating a large area can be expensive. Even in large buildings in warm climates, end users still have to heat their water. That can require a large load, too. The heating side and the actual hot water side can add up to large expenses. By reducing these expenses, end users can save a lot of money each year.” At the same time, federal, state, and municipal governmental agencies are offering all users valuable incentives for reducing the amount of energy they consume each year. By
According to Medairos, systems integration is something that experts in our industry have worked toward for decades. He says one of the latest advancements has been the expanding reach of sensorless and ECM pumps. These pumps —without the need for external sensors—are making it possible to provide flow for large heating and cooling systems with amazing efficiency.”
Boldly Go “To make the primary equipment more efficient, we need to control supply and return system temperatures, and also to match capacity with the load,” says Medairos. “That’s where variable speed pumping makes its greatest contribution.” When there’s equilibrium between a system’s capacity and load, maximum efficiency is achieved. He refers to it as a symbiotic relationship between the system and primary equipment. Boldly going into a newand-exciting operational realm is now the Holy Grail for system designers. After all, highly efficient equipment and individual components—if not matched through the aegis of optimal system design— invariably contribute at less than peak performance. “We need synergy between the central plant—whether it’s a
chiller or hot water system—and the terminal equipment, and all parts in between,” states Medairos.
The Stage Is Set A system designer’s next interest might then be specification of a control system. With the right BAS in place, all facets of the system should work in unity. Ideal would be a system that provides dynamic graphical interface for remote monitoring of pump and system performance in real time, complete with fully automated BAS integration. It avails automatically rendered graphics that show pump performance, all system influences, energy consumption and energy saved in real time—even automatic alarming, trending capability, and predictive maintenance scheduling. A key advantage is the installer’s ability to see all facets of system performance, and if adjustments are needed, they then have the ability to easily balance pump curves to precisely fit system resistance. This greatly reduces balancing and commissioning time, allowing the installer to determine and set parameters—not an expensive commissioning agent. The crusade for total system efficiency is one that system designers embarked on decades ago. Today, we have the means to achieve proper balance and extreme energy efficiency.
investing in higher-efficiency boilers, industrial users might qualify for financial incentives. “The incentives help people justify the initial costs of putting in the higher-efficiency units,” says O’Donnell. “Getting those rebates can make those costs feel like a lot less of a burden.” Maintenance Matters Boilers, even high-efficiency ones, won’t generate the lowest possible energy bills, though, if their end users don’t properly maintain them. Fortunately, maintenance requires little work on the part of end users. Gerardo Lara, senior sales engineer at Rentech Boiler Systems, says that industrial users can help keep their boilers efficient by performing simple routine maintenance. Mostly, this means keeping their boilers clean. But Lara
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BOILERS
radiate enough heat out so that the water comes out cold.” Rohrs says that a growing number of end users recognize that the efficiency of their boilers won’t matter much if the systems they are connected to are consuming gobs of energy every year. Even more importantly, manufacturers are recognizing this fact, he says. He points to the manufacturers of pumps. Today, these manufacturers are focusing on creating pumps that do consume less energy. When these high-efficiency pumps work with high-efficiency boilers, the end result is an overall system that consumes far less energy each year. “It is refreshing to hear pump makers talk about system efficiency,” says Rohrs. “They understand that their pumps are also a driver of the overall efficiency of a system. That’s a nice change.” Lara says that boiler technology does not necessarily Tweaks Matter change quickly. To see truly big differences in energy efficiency, Mass-produced boilers are more efficient today. But customyou’d have to go back to the boilers that companies manufacized boilers can reach even higher levels of efficiency. As an tured 25 or 30 years ago. example, look at the customized boilers that Rentech designs. This doesn’t mean that efficiency improvements haven’t Lara says that Rentech will design custom boilers that boast happened in the last five or 10 years, he notes. It just means far higher efficiency levels than do mass-market versions. that the biggest improvements to how efficiently boilers oper“It has to be a very energy conscious consumer,” he says. “To get such a high-efficiency boiler, you have to invest quite a ate already took place decades ago. But more substantial efficiency changes could be coming bit in capital equipment. We are mindful of what is out there in the future, Lara says. Tougher environmental regulations in the market, the competition. Not everyone wants to pay imposed by state and federal governmental bodies might have more money to get to a higher efficiency level on a natural an important impact on boiler efficiency in the coming years. gas boiler. But we can get higher efficiency levels for specific “Everything that has to do with regulating carbon dioxide customers. We have plenty of experience in designing higherand a company’s carbon footprint could result in more effiefficiency units.” cient boilers,” he says. “Companies are already more conscious of their carbon footprints today. With a boiler, one way to betA Holistic Approach ter control its emissions is by tuning it, making sure that you Boilers are not standalone units like a refrigerator or an air are burning less fuel. You do that by improving your combusconditioner. Because of this, their real efficiency levels often tion tuning.” depend largely on the other operating systems to which they Today’s boilers don’t require much maintenance or cleanare connected. ing. That’s because most boilers sold today burn natural gas. For instance, a high-efficiency boiler won’t be as efficient if the distribution system it is connected to is an older, less effi- Lara explains that almost all the users on the West Coast and in the Gulf region of the country burn natural gas in their cient one. In distribution systems with baseboard or old-style boilers. Only a small number of users in the Northeast today radiators, not as much heat is distributed through the radiaapply for permits to burn light oil through the winter months. tors and into an industrial space. When water makes its way Some older boilers still in operation—not many—might through the building and back into the boiler, it isn’t as cold as even burn coal or wood. Lara believes that the owners of these the boiler would like it to be. Then the boiler, even one with a boilers, and those that burn light oil, will have to work harder high efficiency rating, will consume more energy to heat that water than end users might have expected when purchasing it. to keep their boilers clean. The controls on boilers today are also more efficient, That’s because the colder the water that comes back into a according to Lara, resulting in even more efficiency gains. boiler, the more efficient that boiler operates, O’Donnell says. “Older boilers use controls that were based on old technolIf warmer water comes back in, boilers, even high-efficiency ogy,” he says. “That instrumentation wasn’t efficient as what ones, will consume greater amounts of energy each year. we have today.” But in an industrial space with newer radiators that pull Lara compares the way boilers operated in the past to the more heat out or rely on floor-radiant systems in concrete slabs, old carburetors that came with older-model cars. Older boilthe water that comes back to boilers is colder. Now high-effiers had jackshafts that moved their air dampers and the fuel ciency boilers can actually heat that water without consuming valves. In these old boilers, then, everyas much energy. thing depended on a single device. Just “A lot of people are disappointed like with an old carburetor and its posif they have an older heating system,” sible negative impact on a car, if somesays O’Donnell. “They are not getting thing gets dirty or if something sticks in the returns that they expected. Today, www.businessenergy.net an older boiler, the combustion tuning though, people more often understand will suffer. that they need distribution systems that also recommends that users hire a combustion specialist once every year to make sure that the units’ combustion controls are operating according to specifications. Paul Rohrs, design and application specialist with Lochinvar LLC, a manufacturer of high-efficiency boilers and water heaters, agrees that maintenance is relatively simple. The first key is to make sure that boilers and boiler systems are installed properly. The company that installs the equipment should handle this task, Rohrs says. They’ll do this in part by using a combustion analyzer to measure the amount of carbon dioxide that boilers emit while operating on high fire. Users should also hire a boiler specialist to service the heat exchangers of their boilers on an annual basis, he says.
BE
For related articles:
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“Just like in a car, the main thing that you need to control in a boiler is the amount of air that you are putting into it,” states Lara. “You need a certain amount of air to burn your fuel. You need some excess air to be on the safe side. If you put in too much excess air, you end up pushing heat out. That lowers your efficiency.” Today, though, boiler owners don’t have as much to worry about. He says that the technology in boilers today is topnotch. This is partly because of independent flow meters that make sure boilers are operating as efficiently as possible. No 100% Mark Some end users might believe that one day they’ll be able to buy a boiler that operates with a 100% efficiency rating. But that will never happen. As O’Donnell says, there will come a point at which boilers will reach a maximum efficiency level. No boiler can ever be 100% efficient. Because of this, savvy industrial users are looking at their entire heating and cooling systems—including boilers—when trying to boost the energy efficiency of their warehouses, distribution centers, and factories. For instance, in addition to purchasing high-efficiency boilers, industrial users might also take a closer look at the pumps that move water through their buildings. Instead of relying on pumps that are always moving water at full speed, they might invest in pumps that vary their operating speeds depending on need.
“Pumps operate at much higher efficiencies as they vary their speeds,” says O’Donnell. “It makes sense for users to look at pumps and their whole systems, and not just their boilers, will looking to create a more efficient operation.” To save money, some users might install two highefficiency boilers that handle most of their heating needs throughout the year. They will then purchase third and fourth boilers that are less efficient, and less costly, for redundancy reasons. These backup boilers come on one by one as needed, possibly turning on only when the outside temperature falls to 0°F. But 90% of the time only the high-efficiency boilers will run. “Overall, the boiler bank is still efficient,” says O’Donnell. “But the initial cost to install it because part of the bank is made up of these moderate-efficiency boilers in addition to the high-efficiency ones is much less. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense for companies to invest in only high-efficiency boilers.” What has led to the increase in higher-efficiency boilers? He points to advances in technology. Even 100 years ago, people understood that if the water got cold enough the efficiency levels of boilers would increase, he explains. But the materials that boilers were built out of back then couldn’t handle those higher efficiencies. It wasn’t until manufacturers understood how to form and use stainless steel that they could concentrate on boosting the efficiency levels of their boilers. It wasn’t until they could make
For larger loads, a Miura Multiple Installation system beats a single large conventional boiler for on-demand steam. When we stage multiple units on or off to meet fluctuating demand, you can save up to 20% in annual fuel costs. And it does all this in less than half the space of a conventional boiler.
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Business Energy November | December 2015 35
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heat exchangers that could handle the high-efficiency environment that boilers’ efficiency levels could steadily increase. “It was very expensive at first to get the higher-efficiency boilers,” says O’Donnell. “But as technology matures, it gets less expensive. That has happened here, too. Building owners today are definitely more aware of how efficient boilers can become. They are always looking for efficiency improvements.” Improving technology is also allowing users to better monitor how efficiently their boilers are operating. O’Donnell says that end users today can log in from their phones, tablets, and laptops to monitor how much energy their boilers are consuming. “The whole concept of the Internet of things is changing everything,” he says. “Your refrigerator can talk to your oven and garage door opener. That is kind of where we are at. We can tie together the different systems in your building so you can see your energy usage over time. If something happens with your boiler, maybe you’ll get an alarm on your phone that something is going on. You don’t have to wait until the building gets cold. If that happens, you’re already behind the 8 ball. If you get a notice from the boiler itself, you can react and fix the problem right away, before the building even gets cold.” The Tankless Alternative Boilers aren’t the only high-efficiency options industrial users can turn to for hot water. Tankless water heaters are becoming increasingly popular choices for industrial users, especially those whose buildings are smaller, says Jason Renner, senior product manager for Bradley Fixtures Corporation, the manufacturer of Keltech electric tankless water heaters. Renner adds that the footprint of an electric tankless water heater is about 3 square feet. A system of boilers, though, can fill an entire small or large room, he said. Those industrial users who are short on space, then, often consider tankless water heaters for the space-saving benefits alone. It also costs less to install tankless water heaters, Renner says. And the heaters are highly efficient, often
consuming less energy each year than would a comparable boiler. Boilers, though, do have one big advantage over tankless water heaters: Boilers can act as dual-purpose machines, heating not just water, but entire factory and warehouse buildings, too. Tankless water heaters heat only the water that industrial clients use, Renner points out. Industrial users, then, have to look at several factors when deciding whether a boiler system or a tankless water heater are the right choice for them. Industrial users who need to hit precise water temperatures in a short period of time might be better off with a tankless water heater, Renner says.
“Tankless water heaters have a faster response time. They are more precise when it comes to getting water to a specific temperature in a short amount of time,” he explains. “If you are a commercial user where your water temperature is critical to whatever process you are doing, electric tankless might be a better, faster-acting, more precise solution. You will see less pressure drops going through a tankless heater.” Renner says Tankless heaters are still a relatively new technology, first hitting the industry about 20 years ago. Because of this, many end users still think only of boilers when it comes to their water-heating needs.
Condensing Boilers: What They Are, How They’re Maintained John Smart, a technical and training manager for boiler manufacturer Weil-McLain, has a passion for hydronics. His 23 years serving the company—first in new product development working among engineers, and now in sales force and customer support in the field—have positioned him to also teach boiler maintenance at Weil-McLain’s School of Better Heating. Smart appreciates the different properties found with all types of conventional equipment, whether copper, cast iron or steel. According to Smart, following the manufacturer’s recommendation for proper flow is critical to maintaining the overall performance of the heat exchanger. However, copper boilers may be sensitive to improper flow rate. Too much flow will result in erosion corrosion, too little flow will cause localized boiling in the heat exchanger. In regards to heat transfer, cast iron boilers are superior to steel boilers. While copper is the most effective heat transfer material known today, cast iron boilers are more durable and resilient to handling the extremes that come with marginal flow fluctuations. “Our industry is in a transitional phase,” says Smart. He agrees that a paradigm shift happened somewhere around 15 years ago when technicians were becoming aware that older steam systems are not so efficient. Many began being converted into hot water. “The cooler we run our systems, the more efficient they become,” says Smart. Some of this comes from adding more surface area to the heat exchanger, thereby increasing heat transfer.
“It is possible to get 10 to 12% better efficiency over traditional boilers,” he says. Smart explains that “a condensing boiler, on the combustion side, will use either oil, natural gas, propane or a mixture of gases and will combine the fuel with an oxidizer to produce a chemical, exothermic reaction.” Condensing heat exchangers are made of aluminum or stainless steel to withstand the harsh acidity created in the combustion process. As a point of reference, it takes 1,000 BTUs to change one pound of water into steam. These BTUs are latent energy and are therefore unusable in heating the building. Because the flue gases contain superheated steam and acids, if the gas can be condensed back into a liquid by cooling it, the byproduct is not only water, but also additional matter, thus reclaiming the BTUs that were initially used in the process. “Day to day, the cost and energy savings may appear small, he says. “Per heating season, per year, and over the long-term vision of the appliance lifetime, the savings that accumulate are vastly substantial.” Because of the acidity produced during the condensing process, “physically cleaning the surface of the heat exchanger once a year on a routine scheduled basis is vital,” according to Smart. “This allows for the efficient energy transfer.” The flame rod and igniter are also exposed to the warm, moist, acidic environment, and keeping the boiler running efficiently means catching problems and replacing parts before they wear out entirely.
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Payback Matters What matters most to industrial users—and all commercial end users, really—is the payback period that comes with a high-efficiency boiler. “Everyone wants a short payback,” says Rohrs. “The first two questions out of everyone’s mouth are ‘How much will it cost?’ and ‘How much will it save me?’” Upgrading to a more efficient boiler system can bring solid savings. Rohrs says that depending on how inefficient a user’s old boilers are, upgrading to new ones could bring them yearly energy savings of 30 to 50%. Boilers that come with outdoor reset control could reduce industrial users’ energy bills by even more, Rohrs says. With outdoor reset, boilers react to the outside temperature. If it is 50°F outside, boilers equipped with outdoor reset control might heat water to 120°F
to heat a building. If it is instead zero degrees outside, boilers equipped with this technology might instead heat water to 180°F to heat the building. “We have a weather-responsive building when we are using outdoor reset,” says Rohrs. “That has been very important. That is a big driver for efficiency.” Rohrs predicts that the next driver of energy efficiency will be boilers equipped with indoor reset. This way,
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boilers will react not only to the temperature outside but also conditions inside a building. “This way we will make boilers responsive to the very specific heat loss of the structure,” he says. “We are looking down the road at indoor feedback. We think that will be the next big advancement for efficiency.” BE Dan Rafter is a technical writer and
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As companies like Bradley Fixtures educate commercial users about the benefits of tankless water heaters, though, more industrial and other commercial clients are taking a chance on the equipment, Renner says. “The message is getting out there. But there is still a long way to go,” he remarks. “I don’t think everybody in this country is thinking of electric tankless water heaters for industrial commercial applications. We still have a ways to go to educate everyone about the advantages of tankless heaters.” Renner acknowledges that tankless heaters have a benefit over more traditional tanked water heaters, too. They are more energy efficient—something that should interest industrial users who need to cut their expenses each year. Tanked water heaters hold, heat, and maintain water at a certain temperature all the time, Renner continues. But tankless heaters only consume energy when they actually need to provide hot water. “Our heaters are intended to only use the minimal amount of energy needed to bring water up to that set point,” he states. “Others over-energize the heating elements until they hit the set point. We are applying the least amount of energy to maximize the efficiency, to make our tankless heaters as efficient as possible.”
Business Energy November | December 2015 37
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Rockwell Automation
MOTORS
What’s New
in Drives, Pumps, and Motors?
BRINGING GREATER EFFICIENCY TO INDUSTRY
T
BY LYN CORUM
he Internet has made possible a revolution in power controls—a revolution often referred to as The Internet of Things (IoT). Until it—and the fiber optics that connect us all— came along plant machines operated in their own universes, leaving facility engineers unable to understand how whole plants work together, and unable to find operating efficiencies. That phrase, The Internet of Things, is a favorite theme of Keith Nosbusch, CEO of Rockwell Automation, an international company that focuses on industrial automation and information. Its flagship product brands are Allen-Bradley automation components and integrated control systems, and Rockwell software.
The Internet, along with the Ethernet, came along and changed this world, says Phil Kaufman, Business Manager at Rockwell Automation. One of the company’s key products is a low-voltage variable frequency drive (VFD). A drive has a ton of information in it—more than 1,000 parameters—and that information is used internally to help drives run better. This is information such as power quality, harmonics, voltage, and consumption, all used in diagnostics. “What we’re seeing with VFDs, and the sensors buried in them, is the ability to achieve and extract from the drives more information about how the motors and pumps are operating,” says Kaufman’s colleague Mary Burgoon, market development manager at Rockwell Automation. She adds, “We have more tools now for machines to communicate with each other.
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“Our low-voltage VFDs connect to the Ethernet,” continues Burgoon, and to a computer allowing the manufacturing engineer to study the data and see inefficiencies in production. The engineer can modify the performance of the machinery to improve efficiency, for example, by programming the conveyor line to automatically ramp down until needed. They then can bring in more people with other expertise to optimize production, Kaufman says. There can be a lot of efficiency gains here, Kaufman notes. The conveyor that operates all the time can increase efficiencies, in both energy and labor, by being shut off and on with the VFD and the motor tied together. “The manufacturer who sees the efficiencies of automating the drive and motor will save the most,” in terms of energy efficiency and operations, and the bottom line. You can modulate production based on data abstracted from controls, he says. There is no yardstick to measure energy efficiency, because it is how you improve your whole production line, says Kaufman. Being in a control room and reading monitors instead of walking from one station to the next on the plant floor reduces labor costs. Operations could even be read from a cell phone. Burgoon believes there is big potential here. Some industries are highly automated, “and our task is to get their systems to talk together,” she says. Increasing Business With Automation One company that most typifies the value, in a business sense, of the IoT is Kings Hawaiian Bakery. Robert Taira started it in Hawaii 50 years ago, moved to southern California in the 1990s, and expanded from a 30,000-square-foot facility, to 40,000 square feet. Then, in 2004, the company built a 150,000-square-foot automated baking facility and corporate headquarters. The business continued to grow, and by 2010, after reaching capacity, the company decided to build another factory in Oakwood, GA. Demand had been spreading across the country, and this second factory would help with rising gas prices and other transportation costs. It was to be a 125,000-squarefoot highly automated bakery. The bread making process required a total of 11 specialized machines manufactured by different OEMs. The control and information platform required a unique design environment, user interface, and vendor support model. Kings Hawaiian also wanted advanced data collection capabilities to help it consistently bake the highest-quality products, as well as gain operational efficiencies across the enterprise. Kings Hawaiian hired Bachelor Controls Inc. (BCI), a Rockwell Automation partner, to create an architecture that would enable the company to meet its short-term goal of getting the equipment up-and-running to open the plant on time, while laying the groundwork for information gathering and sharing throughout the enterprise. Also, the company wanted to be able to look in on the baking process remotely from California to maintain production quality. BCI directed all of the OEMs to use the Allen-Bradley Control Logix programmable automation controller, and the AllenBradley PanelView Plus human machine interface for the pack-
aging machines. The entire plant communicates via Ethernet/IP. The new facility opened in October 2011, one week earlier than its planned 10-month deadline. Immediately, it doubled the company’s bread production. Stage two of the project—developing the centralized data collection and control system—was completed in the months after the plant startup. The plant’s engineers are focusing first on leveraging the new information to establish exact productquality standards and parameters. They then will focus on operational efficiencies. A longer version of this case study, including a discussion of specific control systems, is available at www.rockwellautomation.com, under News & Innovation/Success Stories/Food. Fast-Changing Times Did automation and robotics drive innovation in motors, pumps, and VFDs? “It’s a chicken-and-egg situation which came first, but they are interrelated,” says Dr. Mark Johnson, director for the Office of Advanced Manufacturing at the US Department of Energy (DOE). “Tiny motors, high-speed motors, variable speed motors, and larger are all linked by automation. It’s all about converting electricity into mechanical work. We’re in a fast-changing time now. “The big breakthroughs came with semiconductors,” adds Johnson. Semiconductors have traditionally been based on silicon chips. Now the chip materials are transitioning to silicon carbon and gallium nitride. These are known as wide-bandgap semiconductors that permit devices to operate at much higher voltages, frequencies, and temperatures than conventional semiconductor materials. These wide-bandgap materials allow more powerful electrical mechanisms to be built which are smaller, cheaper, and more energy efficient. Applications include optoelectronic devices, such as those for high-efficiency LED lighting and power components needed in industrial processing. There are also applications in consumer appliances, higher efficiency transformers for the grid, and helping integrate renewable energy onto the electric grid. Furthermore, these will accelerate widespread use of robust and efficient power components in high-energy vehicles from electric trains to plug-in electric vehicles. Widebandgap semiconductors are often utilized where high-temperature operation is important. Realizing the full potential of wide-bandgap semiconductors will require the development of cutting-edge manufacturing processes. Johnson says the DOE has made a significant investment to create the Power America Institute ( www.poweramericainstitute.com ) to focus on next generation power electronics development. “We made a funding commitment of $14 million per year for early stage research, development, and design of technology, matched with at least $14 million in private sector, university, and state investment,” he says. According to the DOE’s factsheet on wide-bandgap semiconductors, as manufacturing capabilities improve and market applications expand, costs are expected to decrease, making wide-bandgap-based devices competitive with the presently less expensive silicon-based devices. Moreover, energy losses will be reduced. Wide-bandgap devices eliminate up to 90% Business Energy November | December 2015 39
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Finding Perfect Harmony Peter Hammond, now a consulting engineer with Siemens, thought a lot about how to solve a serious problem with medium-voltage VFDs in the late 1980s when he was with Robicon. He had been designing low-voltage VFDs for many years. Then a solution occurred to him as the company, now owned by Siemens, had been trying to scale up the low-voltage design to medium voltage while encountering problems. VFDs are used to allow an AC motor to operate at any desired speed by changing the frequency supplied to them. Low-voltage drives are designed to operate below about 690 V with a maximum of about 1,000 HP. Medium-voltage drives operate up to 15,000 V and can reach 20,000 HP or more. At the time VFDs were being used with centrifugal pumps or fan loads to save energy, but they were injecting harmonic currents into supply lines. They were also reducing the life expectancy of the motors they were driving. Hammond and his fellow engineers at Robicon saw there was a market for medium-voltage VFDs. Hammond says that, in the ’70s when drives became widely used, people started to notice bad side effects. Cables and transformers were overheating, and utility customers complained of interference with TVs, telephones, and instrumentation. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) created standard 519 in 1981; it was voluntary until 1992. The standard required that harmonic distortion of the current draw by a facility must be less than 5%, he explains. After the standard became mandatory in 1992, Perfect Harmony many facilities started having multi-level drive
to spend money to comply with standard 519. Robicon’s solution hit the market in 1994. So what did Hammond and Robicon do? Hammond saw that instead of connecting semiconductor switches in series to achieve higher voltages, which is very difficult, it would be easy to connect complete low-voltage converters—called power cells—in series. Each phase of the motor could be driven by several power cells connected in series. (A power cell, as used by Robicon/Siemens, is a specific type of converter that takes in three-phase AC power at fixed frequency and voltage and delivers single-phase AC power at variable frequency and voltage.) Hammond asked at the time, “What if we control the power cells to switch one at a time in a multi-level topology?” By stacking low-voltage power cells in series, “we can go as high as six cells in each phase, to 7,200 volts. We can vary the number of cells according to the voltage needed.” Voltage fed to the motor is improved by switching cells at different times. “This gave us a lot more benefits, Hammond says. Switching cells at different times reduces stress on the motor and produces smoother torque. In addition, a transformer in the VFD feeds power to all the cells and cancels many harmonics so that they are not injected into the plant’s power supply. The new drive is in harmony with its environment at both the input and at the output, he explains. The result of this development was called the Perfect Harmony, the first practical multi-level drive. Existing motors did not need to be replaced with this new drive because the currents flowing into the motor are so smooth extra losses are avoided and torque pulsations are minimized. The first Perfect Harmony was controlled by a 16-bit microprocessor, but it was slow so that high-speed control functions required dedicated hardware. When Intel came out with the Pentium a few years later, Hammond says, they upgraded to an all-digital control package using the Pentium, shrinking the control package to the size of a large book. With all control functions in software, very complex control strategies became possible, he says. Hammond says it took a year to build the prototype, and in 1994 when the first drives became available on the market, they sold 47 units. Robicon’s patent was issued in 1997. An oil and gas company was Robicon’s second customer and it bought 21 of the first 47 Perfect Harmony drives for an offshore platform, says Hammond. The company had originally ordered lowvoltage VFDs, but when the engineer came to approve them and saw the Perfect Harmony prototype, he changed the order to Perfect Harmony drives. His reason was that the drives were for submersible pumps in wells under the sea, which cost $1 million to replace if they fail. Using Perfect Harmony drives reduced the risk of such a failure, explains Hammond. The Perfect Harmony has an important feature—the cell bypass Siemens
of the power losses that currently occur during alternating current (AC)-to-direct current (DC), and DC-to-AC electricity conversion. Smart manufacturing has the potential to improve efficiency in energy-intensive processes. Understanding the processes and the energy they consume, and understanding the information technology breakthroughs that can improve these processes is what we want to see studied, Johnson says. Johnson says the next generation electrical machine will be very large, high-megawatt motors—for example those needed in compressors—in chemical factories and wind turbines, to name a few applications. This next generation of machines will lead to more cost effective electrical generation. “We’re looking to have demonstrations of using variable speed drives in large motors,” he says. “Typically, these large motors don’t have VFDs, and we are pushing the technical challenge to make this happen.” The department sent out requests for proposals earlier this year through the national merit review process, he says. “Our technology investments are made with the goal of having an impact on the marketplace,” concludes Johnson.
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option—Hammond says. This feature takes advantage of the inherent redundancy in Cloud-Based Service having multiple cells. The cell bypass option provides a contactor for each cell to remove it GE announced its Predix Cloud, a cloud-based service for industrial data and from the string if it fails. The drive can then analytics on August 5. It seemed fitting to include a short discussion here since it is continue to operate with the remaining cells. part of the digital revolution. The maximum output voltage is reduced, GE says in its announcement, “The world’s first and only cloud solution designed but the customer can continue running the specifically for industrial data and analytics, this platform-as-a service will capture and analyze the unique volume, velocity, and variety of machine data within a highly secure equipment. industrial-strength cloud environment.” Another oil company asked for and got a Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s CEO, was quoted in the announcement saying, “A more guarantee that their drives would run without digital manufacturing plant means more products are made faster.” interruption for five years. Hammond explains Harel Kodesh, vice president and general manager of Predix at GE Software, says that some processes take a long time to stabilize “A cloud built exclusively to capture and analyze machine data will make unforeseen after startup, so the company wanted a drive problems and missed opportunities increasingly a complication of the past. that would never cause a shutdown. The drives “GE’s Predix Cloud will unlock an industrial app economy that delivers more value provided have met the five-year goal. to machines, fleets, and factories,” continues Kodesh, “and enable a thriving developer Hammond reports that there are intercommunity to collaborate and rapidly deploy industrial applications in a highly national competitors, particularly in China, protected environment.” where many companies have copied the Perfect Harmony. “We were naive and only applied for oped for both Europe and Asia around that time, and Amstutz US patents,” says Hammond. Siemens expects competition to increase when the US patent expires. recounts that other motors meeting the IEC standards were Siemens is manufacturing Perfect Harmony VFDs at its not as robust or reliable as US motors. “We took everything we main plant in Pittsburg, and in plants in Germany, Shanghai, learned from our development of the XXD project and applied and Brazil. Approximately 13,000 drives have been installed it to International Electrochemical Commission [IEC] motors, worldwide, and total sales are approaching $2 billion. “It’s starting in 2009,” he says. been an interesting time,” says Hammond. Between 2005 and 2009, GE developed the Quantum Siemens celebrated the 20th anniversary of Hammond’s motor in the larger size range, 300 HP to 1,000 HP, Amstutz says, using the same ideas he and his fellow engineers learned invention of Perfect Harmony on August 8, 2015. with the XXD. The Quantum meets both NEMA and IEC standards for all markets. Motor Efficiency “The XXD models are our flagship motors,” says Amstutz. Robert Amstutz, a senior applications engineer in GE’s Energy “We are in the middle of introducing vertical pump motors, Management division, discusses the history of the extra severe and we’ll apply the lessons learned to the vertical platform.” duty motor, which GE introduced in the early ’80s, and how These motors will be targeted for the irrigation and wastewater that development led to ever more energy-efficient motors. markets, he says. Known as the XXD, this motor changed the game by The 2005 Energy Policy Act contains efficiency standards, being a higher efficiency motor that operated in the 1- to which vertical pumps currently have to meet, but they are 300-HP range, Amstutz says. It remained competitive lower than the NEMA Premium standards, which will take throughout the ’80s. effect in June 2016, boosting efficiency standards about 2% During the ’90s, other motor manufacturers caught up, above the current federal standard. Horizontal pumps have and the US and Canada started setting higher efficiency levels. had to meet NEMA Premium efficiency standards since 2010. The IEEE 841 standard was developed though a collaboration Amstutz says motors in service will not have to comply of many manufacturers, which produced a better, more reliwith the new efficiency standards, but replacement motors will. able motor for oil and process industries, Amstutz says. “We Luc de Camas, senior product leader for power converdecided we had to go to a higher level,” he adds. This developsion, also at GE, talked about the N37, launched on July 1. It is ment produced the XXD Ultra. a compact induction motor with virtually the highest power The National Electrical Manufacturers Association density in its class and a dramatically increased power per (NEMA) also produced efficiency standards. The first took kilogram ratio, operating at 6,000 HP. effect in 1997 and increased efficiency requirements by 5%, to The N37 was upgraded from the N3 motor line to make 10%. A second standard boosted efficiency requirements by it lighter and less noisy. “We saw a big need to move to better 2% in 2010. efficiency and lower cost,” he says. It is manufactured in France “We said we will go beyond the standard,” says Amstutz, and other international sites. The N37 is designed to run com“and the result was the XXD Ultra 841. This motor has half pressors and pumps in the oil and gas and other industries, the vibration of the IEEE standard.” which have large compressors and pumps, de Camas says. Into the late ’90s and early 2000s, Amstutz says, “We did a The motor will be introduced into the US market at the lot of research” and saw market potential in Europe where there end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 and will be available were no standards at the time. in 60 Hz. It is currently available to operate at 50 Hz for the However, the International Electric Standards were develBusiness Energy November | December 2015 41
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MOTORS
i-ALERT2 is on ITT equipment —and if the equipment serial number has been put into the iPhone— the pump curve, data sheet, and parts list materials, downloaded from the Cloud, can be shown on the iPhone. Moreover, Sullivan says, “We can also enable GPS and identify the closest sales office or repair facility on the app.” It’s been tested on a lot of industrial equipment—cars, The i-ALERT2, an affordable refrigerators, school pumps, he says, monitor for small pumps, is read and he adds that heating, ventilating, with a handheld device. and air-conditioning systems are not ITT’s target market. It is concentrating on industrial markets. Monitoring Pumps Sullivan says the i-ALERT2 app has been launched with Plants with small pumps can look forward to improved and Apple and IOS products and will be launched on Android next affordable monitoring with the i-ALERT2, introduced by ITT year. He explains that Apple devices have a solid platform, but many Android devices do not have the required technology yet. in May. Traditionally, if a plant operator wanted to know how The i-ALERT2 is currently available for download on the a pump, fan, compressor, or gearbox was performing, he used App Store on iTunes. “One of our goals is to make the data a handheld device to check vibration, according to Jeffrey understandable without having to ask an expert to interpret Sullivan, global projects manager at ITT. The company, headquartered in White Plains, NY, is a diversified manufacturer of it,” says Sullivan. ITT also has a variable frequency drive product called highly engineered critical components and customized tech“PumpSmart,” which has been on the market since 2007. nology for the energy, transportation, and industrial markets. PumpSmart was named Plant Engineering Magazine’s 2014 Sullivan explains that the first i-ALERT was introduced in Product of the Year. 2008, but all it did was flash a green or red light to check engine PumpSmart is available in both low-voltage and mediumstatus. He says the operator had to be there to check the status. voltage models. Addressing the medium-voltage model, the It was a big success, “and we started getting a lot of feedback company says it is designed to control and monitor highabout how to improve it,” he says. “We have been studying how to do it, and low-energy Bluetooth technology with long battery energy centrifugal pumps, 4160 V and above, providing realtime visibility to pump operation. Real-time diagnostics of life caught up with us two-and-a-half years ago.” the pump system are displayed on an easy-to-use touchscreen Margaret Gan, ITT’s spokesperson, says that the pump dashboard or can be transmitted to a main distributed control market has traditionally had monitors with high-energy system, giving engineers the ability to maximize the energy pumps, but not smaller pumps in low-energy application. The usage and efficiency of each pump. i-ALERT2 has opened up this smaller market, she says. Sullivan says the Pump Smart controller can provide pump Sullivan adds that the three major market segments protection, and information on speed and pressure levels and include very large, expensive equipment for turbines, for can control a multi-pumping system without flow meters. example, and both the large- and mid-range segments want Furthermore, the Pump Smart controller will balance hardwired continuous monitoring. There haven’t been moniloads between four pumps with a common head, based on tors for smaller products without the price point being too flow and pressure level. “It will control whatever you want,” high, says Sullivan. The i-ALERT and its follow-on i-ALERT2 he says. A full description of PumpSmart is available at: fills this gap by providing a more affordable monitor for small http://ittproservices.com/aftermarket-products/control. pumps, fans, compressors, gear boxes—anything a plant manKeith Nosbusch, CEO of Rockwell Automation has the ager wants to monitor. last word as quoted in December 2014 of IndustryWeek. He The new monitor, a small 1 ½-inch by 2 ¼-inch device believes the IoT will improve our economic situation, because that is installed with one bolt on top of the pump, does a automation increases productivity at the end of the day. “Even lot more tracking than its predecessor. It records vibration, as we have less direct labor with this new model, high-tech temperature, and equipment run time. All data is transmitted jobs and processes do have a multiplier effect,” he says . . . “by via Bluetooth 4.0 technology to a handheld device such as an taking the data from the connected machines, or enterprise, iPhone. It has continuous monitoring and a wireless range of and figuring out how to utilize the data up to 100 feet, and can scan multiple to make faster and better decisions. These i-ALERT devices at once. decision-making improvements will drive If something goes wrong, the global competitiveness.” BE i-ALERT2 will let the plant manager know, says Sullivan. It sends an alert www.businessenergy.net Lyn Corum is a technical writer specializing every five seconds, and if the iPhone in energy topics. is turned on, the app will ping. If the ITT PRO Services
European and Asian markets. “There has been a big revolution in high-speed, high-power induction motors,” says de Camas. “The goal is to be at the forefront of the technology revolution.” Amstutz continued with a comment on smaller motors: “We have the most reliable, lowest vibrating motors with the best thermal margin, due to the highest-rated insulation with the lowest temperature rise built into the motors. We use both VFDs and motors to improve power conversion. We’re one of the few companies to match both for clients.”
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acilities depend on an uninterruptible power supply or power source (UPS) to provide nearly instant power to a load when the main power fails, or an automatic transfer switch (ATS) to switch the load between the utility power and a backup generator when it senses a power outage. A load bank mimics a real load that a power source supplies to in real operation. The load bank serves the power source through its energy to test, support, or protect it.
About Load Banks Whether load banks, ATS, or UPS systems are best rented or owned depends on the situation, says Bhavesh Patel, vice president, ASCO (Automatic Switch Company) Power Tech-
istock/Gabylya
BY CAROL BRZOZOWSKI
nologies, a business unit of Emerson Electric Company, which manufactures and sells transfer switches, power control systems, and industrial control products for business-critical continuity. Load banks also are part of the company’s portfolio. Load banks are needed to certify facility readiness before bringing in expensive equipment, notes Patel. For instance, a new hospital is constructed and before the expensive medical equipment is installed, there must be assurances that the systems will operate properly from an electrical standpoint. “You use the load bank as if it is the MRI equipment that is consuming electricity,” he says. “That is how you test the electrical infrastructure—the distribution within the normal facility—to make sure that everything is OK before you put in the MRI equipment.” Because testing is predominantly done at the beginning of
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the site installation and commissioning, a good chunk of load bank opportunities are rental in nature, says Patel. But there are situations that call for a permanent load bank installation, such as the hospital example cited above, and in critical data centers; they are required by code to test on a regular basis, or some have to test because of business conditions. In choosing the appropriate load bank, the first consideration is size as well as future plans, Patel says. “You may start a data center that has a certain computer capacity, but that is not the computer capacity functioning on day one. On day one, you might have 0.25 X computer capacity and five years down the road, you reach that full X computer capacity. You need the load bank to be sized to that entire range so that you can gradually add load as your computer capacity increases, rather than having to constantly change that equipment.” Getting and retaining results is another factor. “It’s more than just a pass/fail result. You need to be able to capture the details of the results,” says Patel. “You need to be able to get that electronically so it can be recorded and saved for future reference, such as if your facility is mandated to prove it has done the tests and you need to show the results to an inspector.” It’s important to do analytics and trending, which is accomplished through a load bank’s metering capabilities, he adds. With load banks, the path of the air flow needs to be kept clean, as there has to be enough ambient air flow as part of the design; the air flow takes away the heat, says Patel. “If it is not clean and gets clogged up, then the load bank will not be able to dissipate the heat that it generates each time it is used, and that
degrades its capacity and creates other potential problems.” Real-World Examples An Arizona copper mine needed to test a new, 40-MW, lowemission, natural gas turbine generator deployed to augment local utility power in support of expanded mining and smelting operations, and turned to ComRent for help. ComRent assists mission-critical facilities that need to test their models under construction prior to energization. Load banks are one of the solutions ComRent offers. The most expeditious route the copper mine could take for its power needs was purchasing and installing a turbine, notes Terrence Whalen, director of sales. “As they were in the construction phase, they kept trying to wrestle with the fact that the typical way to commission a turbine is off the load of the facility,” says Whalen. “That represents a few problems. One: this was a high-efficiency 50-megawatt turbine, and they needed real small steps—small as 500 kilowatts—to prove out the commissioning process. We could not jeopardize this facility, because any outages that they would have could be detrimental—they’ve got an industrial process going on, and a lot of material could harden and additional costs and loss of revenue would result.” “The turbine that was being tested ran the process of air exchange while the staff worked in the mine,” continues Whalen. “During the mining process, microscopic particles float in the air. These particles can become ignited and with the presence of oxygen cause an explosion. The turbine works to exchange out the microscopic particles and replace with clean air to breathe.
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the unit that was not being friendly was number two, which in turn was the one that they had the most reliance on and that’s why they were having issues,” says Gutierrez. “It would cause failure across not just that generator, but all of them would shut down. They needed to find a way to have constant and guaranteed load without having interruption to their service, their field, the pumps, and refinery.
big movers for Load Banks Direct, points out its president, Martin Glover. Digital simplifies data collection and enables master/slave operations, whereby a facility operator can use multiple load banks in parallel and control all off one controller. Another new development for Load Banks Direct is its 1,000-kW load bank. Mobile load banks are used in settings
Copper mine installation
ComRent
The importance of keeping the turbine up and running was critical to the life of the facility as well as to life itself.” In addition to the challenge of the operation not being in a position to lose power to the currently running plant, the cost to shut down parts of the plant to provide incremental load was too high, as the plant’s revenue averaged about $200 million per year. Elevation and high temperatures added more hurdles. ComRent’s team of five technicians provided seven CR922 medium-voltage load banks, two K975 resistive load banks, two 3,500-kVA transformers, switchgear, and 3,000-amp MVCB + fused disconnects. ComRent was able to deliver 40.862 MW at a unity power factor, which is strictly a resistive load at 13,800 V, to test the turbine generator, says Serafin Gutierrez, load bank technician. “We were able to achieve almost a full megawatt above what they were expecting from us. That was due to the amount of the load we had arrived with at the site. At that point, we continued eight to 10 hours of 40 megawatts constantly running on the turbine to a point where after that 10-hour run, the turbine manufacturer, the copper mine commissioning agency plus ourselves were all OK with everything being a success, and we shut down with everything in the loading sequence.” The process spanned two weeks. “The copper mine’s project managers were able to rapidly commission the gas turbine’s additional electrical generating capacity, eliminating the long lead times and high costs associated with extending additional local utility power to the mine, while also verifying the natural gas turbines’ operational capacity, emissions, and safety functions without impacting the mine’s ongoing mining and smelting operations,” says Whalen. In another case, a refinery needed to have its own power grid. “The problem is there was always a generator that was constantly not sharing the load or being friendly with the counterpart generators,” says Gutierrez. “They didn’t know how and why this was happening, so they requested us to bring in equipment so they could individually test each genset.” Three generators were tested in pairs: generator one to two, one to three, and then two to three. “They found out that
“Bringing in our equipment and our solution, they were able to find that single generator that was giving them problems and repair it. They are adding a fourth cogen into that system and looking at bringing us in to do that test to make sure the load sharing they were having a problem with originally isn’t having a problem again prior to putting that fourth one on.” Gutierrez says that a relay manufacturing company, that conducts modeling for utilities to show how their new line will react to customer loads, told him “they still see more than 20% failure when they energize due to construction errors.” He adds that, in many cases, a site is “about to put live power to a utility substation or turn on a generator when it’s in a mission critical situation, and coming toward the load test, they find a lot of the problems. It doesn’t show up until the moment they’re needing that power and now they don’t have it due to the fact that they were not able to load test. Eighty percent of the problems they find are prior to putting the load into play.” Digital Controls The movement from manual operator controls to digital controls is one of the
such as campuses and other large facilities where the need to move them from generator to generator, or another power source, is paramount. “They also can be rented for service companies,” adds Glover. Load banks are not only used for regular testing and maintenance of emergency power sources, but also as a supplemental load. “If you’re testing a load bank, you put that into the system for a period of time to conduct the test,” he explains. “But you can also put a load bank into the system as a supplemental load if you have a lightly loaded generator and you’re having issues relative to wet stacking. Lightly loaded generators can be challenged with unburned fuel and some of the effects on the generator relative to that.” Load Banks Direct has auto load level controls that will pull in a certain amount of load bank load as required to ensure a minimum on the generator at all times to help avoid wet stacking, Glover adds.
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In selecting the best load bank for the application, intended use is the prime consideration. “Rental and service companies need to look for robust load banks just by the nature of how they’re used and transported from site to site,” says Glover. “There are certain requirements in terms of a construction of a load bank that would be important.” Load Banks Direct’s portable units are designed for rugged use demanded in rental industry, including the frames, castors, and protected controls. The company also offers shipping, bolt-on, and rollout frames to the rental industry. Testing HPS Loadbanks is an authorized dealer for Crestchic load banks from 500 kVA, to 6,125 kVA. The company packages the units in all-weather ISO shipping containers for use in a variety of conditions. Because the units are resistivereactive, they can simulate a power factor as low as 0.4, notes Paul Karpf, general manager for HPS Loadbanks. “After a huge investment in onsite power, load banks can give a facility operator a sense of confidence in that equipment,” he says. “When engines are installed in, for instance, a pharmaceutical plant, they may run a 12- to 24-hour load test on those engines before the end users sign off on the job.” There’s a significant difference between resistive testing and resistive/ reactive, states Karpf. “Resistive testing is just heating up elements and blowing out hot air. Today, most engineers want reactive testing so they can simulate 0.8 power factor. Essentially, reactive testing tests a lot more than just the engine and generator’s ability to generate power. It also will test the voltage regulator and other components inside the generator.” HPS Loadbanks recently worked on a hospital project involving 2-MW Caterpillar generators. Switchgear was utilized to parallel the two units and route the power through six automatic transfer switches. “We tested the engines and now, the hospital has issued a purchase order to have its quality control person test the automatic transfer switches at full capacity,” says Karpf. “Once we’re done with our parallel switchgear engine testing, the hospital will then take over and its quality control manager will put full load through each one of the ATS switches to
make sure they can carry that load.” Karpf says many hospitals are now doing full load tests once, or even twice, a year by simulating full loads on their engines, generators, and switchgear. If that works out, then they might conduct a test through their automatic transfer switches. “But being a hospital, many of them prefer to do the testing with load banks and not run through the automatic transfer switches because of patient care and related issues,” he adds. Karpf says their load banks require very little maintenance. “If a load bank’s capacity is five megawatts, you could use a 400-kilowatt generator, or an equivalent source of power, to cycle through the load steps,” he says. “You can apply 400 kilowatts at a time to each load step on the load bank, and essentially you’re testing the load bank at full capacity. If you want to test a five-megawatt load bank to full capacity all at once, you’re talking about three huge generators, and potentially 350 to 400 gallons an hour of fuel.” That’s why HPS Loadbanks uses a “test the load steps” approach, says Karpf. “We use much less power, cycle through the different load steps, and at the end of the test, we know that they will carry the full load when the load bank goes into action.” After running through the load steps one at a time, the company conducts a full visual inspection on the unit. “If we find that a load step is not pulling the power it’s supposed to—let’s say it’s pulling 150 kilowatts instead of 200 kilowatts—that usually indicates a bad fuse, a bad resistor, or maybe even a bad electrical contractor,” says Karpf. “When cycling through the load steps, we’ll occasionally find an issue and we’ll try to handle it on the spot, go back to the load step, and then when we see the power capacity go up to where it should be, we know it’s fixed. Other than that, there’s very little maintenance of our units aside from the occasional cleaning of the interior for dust that builds up inside the units.” Choosing a Load Bank In choosing the appropriate load bank for the application, the first consideration would be whether the testing will be straight resistive, or if it will be a resistive/ reactive load test to simulate power factor. A second would be if the load bank
going to be portable and be moved around or is it going to be stationary, Karpf points out. “A lot of end users will install a stationary load bank on the roof or next to their backup generator, and then it’s all hooked up for testing. They’ll do testing two to four times a year. A stationary load bank is going to cost a lot less than a portable, because it’s not meant to be jarred and moved around.” Stationary load banks are also installed to keep the exhaust and emission systems free of the carbon buildup that occurs when generators are operated at a reduced capacity. Weather conditions are another consideration. “If you’re buying a stationary load bank but you’re in a heavy rainfall, high-moisture location, that might impact your decision on what type of load bank to buy for that application,” says Karpf. HPS Loadbanks offers units with heaters inside to prevent moisture buildup for those who want to make such an investment. Most of the load bank units are rented for temporary onsite jobs and designed for portability, but occasionally a facility owner will invest in a highly reliable portable unit to be placed next to a standby generator. Those who spend the extra money on a portable unit will also benefit from a potentially higher resale value, Karpf says. “There are certainly higher quality, more robust designs being sold to customers, but many lower cost stationary units have a life cycle of eight to 10 years and are either replaced or junked—the lower cost is a tradeoff. It’s a fourth or third of the cost of a portable unit, so the components may not be nearly as robust.” ATS The fundamental use of an ATS lies in its intelligence and monitoring capability of the availability of normal supply. “If it sees any disruption, it sends a signal to the generator to turn on,” notes ASCO’s Patel. “Once the generator is up-and-running, it senses voltage. If the voltage is within the parameter, then it switches over.” Having metering and analytics capabilities on transfer switches leads to identifying potential problems before they become disasters, Patel says. “On transfer switches, you buy an additional metering feature that becomes part of your switch, allowing you to capture this trending and
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LOAD BANKS
analytics capability.” He adds that testing a generator helps extends its life. “Having this capability in both motivates you to go to the testing more than the switching capability because the switches do more than just consume electricity. They can interact with the generator and with the facility, turning loads on and off. Having the trending and analytics capability in a switch motivates people to go through their prescribed testing on a regular basis.” A transfer switch is akin to an insurance policy for facilities, says Patel. “It only needs to function when there’s a problem, so 90% of the time it’s just sitting idle collecting dust.” Dust, however, conducts electricity. “So at the bare minimum, cleaning up the switching device or the environment around it is a huge requirement,” says Patel. “Keeping the environment clean will prevent the electrical arcing when you switch from one to the other. Each electrical arc eats into the copper and degrades the contacts used in the switching solution.” Additionally, because the ATS is an electromechanical component, lubrication may be required over time to help extend the life of the switch. One of the critical factors in choosing an ATS switch is that it be UL-1008 compliant, says Patel. Product support is also important. “All of these products have a very long life. Transfer switches typically are good for at least 20 years—load banks, maybe 10 years,” he says. “You need to make sure you’re buying a product that has parts availability or just basic phone support over a long period of time.” Many people don’t pay attention to the issue of codes and standards, says Patel, adding that in a company survey two years ago, 92% of the respondents were unaware of their switch’s UL certification, and in more than 65% of the facilities—such as hospitals, data centers, and utilities—a UL 1008 labeled switch is required. “Should that particular facility run into any issue, then it results in an insurance claim,” he adds. “The insurance company will dig into the details and if there is anything outside of code, they could technically reject that claim. Or when they are ready to open the facility, somebody notices this and could red tag your facility. Rather than to be subject
to a last minute surprise that becomes expensive, it’s important to pay attention to this upfront.” Mission Critical Russelectric’s market is mission-critical facilities. “If you’re trying to control emergency backup power in a data center or a hospital, you’re truly mission-critical,” says John Stark, company spokesperson. “In a data center, the loss of power could result in a significant loss of data. In a hospital, it could result in a loss of patient lives as well as the loss of patient data. With electronic patient records now, a doctor can’t even prescribe an aspirin without checking a patient’s records, and without power he doesn’t have access to those records.” Stark says Russelectric switches feature a spring-loaded “over center” mechanism. “They are ‘break before make’ switches, where the contact with the utility source breaks and connects to the emergency source. They also have closed transition switches, which will avoid that break. They offer a full range of switches in ratings from 100 amps, to 4,000 amps.” Russelectric also offers a time-delay function for high-inductive loads. “If power is lost, any motors that are powered can actually feed power back into the system so that in order to prevent that power from causing a trip, you can specify a time delay between the time the utility power goes out and the emergency power kicks in,” says Stark. “That could be as much as three to five seconds, depending on your application. That gives the motors a chance to wind down and prevent the trip on reconnect.” Russelectric Open-Transition Automatic Transfer Switches are available in a dual-operator design with an adjustable time delay between the disconnect from one live power source and the connection to a second live source. “This delay is ideal when switching large inductive loads consisting of large motors or transformers,” says Stark. “It allows residual voltage produced by motor generator action to decay sufficiently in amplitude and frequency so that the two sources are in synchronism at the time of the transfer, thereby preventing the tripping of circuit breakers.” Russelectric Bypass/Isolation Switches are available in load break as well as no-load-break designs. “No-load-
break bypass switches allow bypass of the ATS from either the normal source or emergency source to load, without load interruption only if the ATS is connected to the source to which the operator wishes to bypass,” says Stark. “Otherwise, the operator must first manually transfer the ATS to this source and experience a load interruption.” Designed for rapid response in emergencies, the Russelectric Load Break Bypass/Isolation Switch is designed to offer fast, easy, and mechanical bypassing of the ATS—regardless of position or condition—to allow the operator to quickly restore power to vital circuits in an emergency. Russelectric also offers UL-tested, listed, and labeled 30-cycle close-andwithstand rated automatic transfer switches and bypass/isolation switches. “With the ability to withstand fault current for 30 cycles—10 times the duration of three-cycle transfer switches—Russelectric 30-cycle rated switches allow coordinated overcurrent protection to interrupt the fault and protect downstream equipment such as expensive medical devices,” adds Stark. He says the 30 cycle switches offer the ability to selectively coordinate breakers and limit any outages to small sections of a building instead of having an entire building go down. “The time delay eliminates power transience when switching large inductive loads.” UPS In 2004, Cushman & Wakefield, a major commercial real estate broker company, began a project to replace antiquated UPS systems in its St. Louis location. The company wanted a scalable system and started with two 500-kVA 9900B series Mitsubishi UPS systems. “Then it grew to three and from that relationship, we started utilizing Mitsubishi UPS at many of our locations, primarily for its reliability and secondarily around the fact that on the market at the time, it was the most efficient unit for the highest power factor,” notes Sid Eli, account director for Cushman & Wakefield at Anthem. Reliability, power efficiency, and cost competitiveness are the three driving factors for incorporating the Mitsubishi UPS systems, says Eli. The systems have “performed admira-
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therefore diminishing their life.” Mitsubishi’s 1-MW (1.05-MVA) 9900C online double conversion UPS is designed to deliver up to 97% efficiency and be easily scalable up to eight units for N+1 redundancy or N capacity, the threephase UPS incorporates Digital Signal Processor, and Direct Digital Control. Additionally, three-level conversion design increases capacitor life, allowing Mitsubishi to offer a 15-year warranty on the capacitors. The unit also provides a
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variety of open architecture communications methods as well as an intuitive LCD touch panel to quickly access system status, monitoring, and control. Eli adds that there are situations where Cushman & Wakefield have other products in place where the capital investment is as such where it is not time to change to Mitsubishi products. BE Carol Brzozowski specializes in topics related to energy and technology.
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bly” through various power outages experienced at the buildings, he notes, adding that “reliability and uptime for a financial institution is huge. Typically, they’re your first line of defense and hold critical load until other systems, such as backup generation, can come on,” he says. “In considering how a system or data center works in a power outage, it typically takes between nine and 26 seconds for generators to start paralleling gear to then switch from the utility feed to a backup generation feed.” Another factor in favor of the Mitsubishi systems is the front access for repair, which is a big benefit for space conservation, he adds. No matter how stellar a machine’s reputation, one can get lulled into a false sense of security, explains Eli. “All machines can break. With a decade worth of high reliability, it’s very surprising and unexpected when we have a component malfunction in the Mitsubishi UPS.” To that end, regular maintenance is critical, and Cushman & Wakefield outsources that task. “If you manage and maintain any machines according to the manufacturers’ specifications, you’re going to get the best life out of the product and that’s been the case with our entire line of Mitsubishi products,” says Eli. “We have retrofitted older Mitsubishi products and then redeployed them to less critical locations. That speaks volumes to the return on investment if after 10 years are able to retrofit or redeploy—you get that much more out of a particular purchase.” Another benefit is power conditioning, he says. “A lot of people think about reliability, the total cost of ownership, and the longevity of capital items that they put into play, but I haven’t found on the market a platform that power conditions better, meaning utility power isn’t very clean. That’s a little shocking to people. Home systems are designed to work with a range of ambiguity in the power, but data center infrastructure and critical systems infrastructure requires very, very clean power.” In order to clean power, Mitsubishi uses single-pass and double-pass inverters on its newer products. “The last thing you want to do is hit your batteries and go on inverter,” says Eli. “Their boxes stand out to me in the sense that they can take a wide range of incoming power fluctuations and a wide range of inconsistencies in power correct without having to go to battery,
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Business Energy November | December 2015 49
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GUEST COMMEN TA RY
Industrial Phase In THINKING ABOUT INSTALLING LEDS IN PHASES? HERE’S WHERE TO START.
T
BY JOSH KEGLEY
Cold Storage Excessive heat degrades the semiconductors that power LED diodes. The hotter the space, the more rapid the lumen depreciation and the dimmer the diodes
appear. Cold has the opposite effect, potentially extending the life of LEDs, which is why facility managers considering a relamping of refrigerators and freezers should consider LEDs first and foremost. Unlike any other traditional lighting source, LEDs don’t appear dimmer at or below freezing. Longer life and brighter light aren’t the only benefit. Many freezers are only occupied for a few minutes at a time
High-Volume Production Lines Replacing blown halides or fluorescent bulbs in a manufacturing space can cost far more than new bulbs and the staff time it takes to swap them. Replacing lights above assembly lines requires the lines to be stopped, and output loss equals money loss. Although the cost of new LED fixtures can be too prohibitive for entire facilities, the longevity of LEDs
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his might sound strange coming from a company that manufactures and installs industrial LED fixtures, but LEDs are not always the best cost-saving solution . . . at least not yet. As time wears on, LEDs will get cheaper, brighter, and more energyefficient, but that does little good for facility managers who need a lighting upgrade now. Like most facility decisions, choosing new fixtures often boils down to budget, and wrangling over the numerous ancillary benefits of LEDs can’t change the fact that the fixtures currently cost about twice as much as other commonly used industrial lighting fixtures. Replacing every single fixture with LEDs can be too costly for many facilities to consider. However, upgrading to LEDs is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Installing LEDs in phases allows facilities managers to get a head start on site-wide LED lighting while still staying within yearly budget and energy goals. When deciding where to place various light fixtures, consulting a company with lighting engineers on staff who are familiar with different kinds of light sources can help ensure complete coverage with the least energy use. LEDs aren’t perfect for everything, but some applications nearly always benefit from LEDs’ energy efficiency or additional benefits, such as long-life, low maintenance, and durability. For industrial facilities installing LEDs in phases, here are five of the best places to start.
Big Ass Light installed 48 LED fixtures at the M3 Production facility in Bellefontaine, OH. Direct light in fast-paced production areas helps with sight-sensitive tasks, and LEDs require fewer slowdowns for maintenance.
—just long enough to grab a box or pallet—meaning the lights are either turned off and on rapidly, or left on while the freezer is unoccupied. Leaving the lights on not only wastes energy to power the bulb, but it also requires the cooling unit to work harder to compensate for the bulbs’ heat output. Unlike fluorescents, turning LEDs on and off rapidly does not shorten their life. Coupled with the fact they reach full brightness instantly, even in the cold, LEDs with occupancy sensors are a setit-and-forget-it solution that could save loads of effort and energy over time.
makes it worthwhile to install them over high-volume production and assembly areas in which an unplanned interruption in workflow can also be costly. The highest-quality LED fixtures have a rated life of 150,000 hours—about 17 years of 24-hour-a-day use. Comparatively, metal halide and fluorescent bulbs typically have a rated life of two to three years, although both are prone to premature failures. Warehouse Aisles Light from LEDs can be directed, unlike metal halide and fluorescent bulbs that distribute light in all directions. The lat-
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ter send half their lumens to the ceiling. Typically, an LED beam is between 110 and 150°F. The narrower beams of LEDs are perfect for narrow aisles between high warehouse shelves. Much of the light cast by halides and fluorescents simply lights the tops of boxes and shelves, creating shadows that can make it harder to perform sight-sensitive tasks such as operating forklifts and reading labels or manifests. Occupancy sensors on LEDs also have the potential to save energy in this application as well, since warehouse aisles are often used infrequently. Cranes Durable LED fixtures rarely cost less than older-style metal halide and fluorescent fixtures. Overhead cranes are a common exception. Cranes often use proprietary fixtures that must be purchased directly from manufacturers, resulting in an artificial price hike. These light fixtures are attached to
the bottom of overhead cranes to help employees see what they’re lifting. However, the constant vibration of the fixtures isn’t good for delicate glass bulbs, requiring frequent bulb changes. High-quality LED fixtures are more durable and shock-resistant, and their directional light output often results in better floor-level visibility beneath the crane. Many LED fixtures can be customized to fit any crane and cost less than proprietary metal halide or fluorescent fixtures. Any Facility with Metal Halides With rapid advancements in lighting technology, there is next to no reason to have metal halides in any type of facility. Metal halides are a type of highintensity discharge lighting that work in much the same way as incandescent bulbs. An electric arc burns so hot that it creates light—as well as massive amounts of waste heat. Metal halide bulbs can reach temperatures of 300°F,
compared to about 100°F for LEDs. Even with the relatively higher cost of LEDs, large facilities can see a return on investment within a few months to a couple years when replacing their metal halide fixtures. Generally speaking, LEDs use half the power of metal halides, or less, while delivering the same amount of lumens. Considering that 35 to 40% of any facility’s typical power cost goes to lighting, those savings add up quickly. Shop for Solutions, Not Fixtures LEDs are not a one-size-fits-all solution for industrial spaces. The ideal type of light, the number of fixtures needed and the location of each fixture varies by facility. Before installing fixtures, consult with a company that has lighting engineers on staff who are familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of each type of light, as well as government regulations and available rebates. BE Josh Kegley is a writer for Big Ass Solutions.
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PROJECT PROFIL E
New Central Utility Plant at Los Angeles International Airport DESIGNED TO ACCOMMODATE FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS AS AIRPORT MODERNIZES BY DANIEL MCKELVIE requirements on the old Central Utility Plant (CUP) serving the airport. Constructed in 1961, this CUP had been updated several times, most recently in 1983 when combined heat and power (CHP) was added, and the chiller plant was upgraded. By 2008, the CUP’s capacity was exceeded by the increase in terminal heating and cooling demands, its efficiency was well below current standards, and the system was further taxed by the addition of Bradley West. As part of the overall airport
Central Utility Plant complex at LAX
to the public in 2013. It provides 18 new gates that accommodate new-generation aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8. The terminal also encompasses a large hall for dining, shopping and other passenger amenities, and bigger customs and immigration and passenger security screening areas. The Bradley West project not only added to the number of gates, but also increased the heating and cooling
modernization, a replacement CUP was required. In February 2011, a $423.8-million construction project was launched to replace the old CUP with a new one. Centrally located in the heart of the Central Terminal Area (CTA), west of the iconic LAX Theme Building, the new CUP was designed to be an efficient, state-of-the-art facility that would meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certifica-
tion standards and serve LAX’s current thermal and power needs with some additional capacity for future growth.
AECOM
A
s the fifth-busiest airport in the world, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) serves nearly 70.7 million passengers a year with one-quarter of the total going to or coming from international destinations. To stay competitive with other global airports, LAX began a multibillion-dollar program that includes construction of the new $1.9-billion Tom Bradley International Terminal. This project, also known as “Bradley West,” opened
Creating a New CUP The new CUP site is located directly west of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control tower within the CTA. The project’s small footprint posed unique design challenges. For this reason, new cooling towers were placed above a newly constructed maintenance building adjacent to the site and not on the roof of the new CUP. Another challenge was to increase the chilled and heating hot water temperature differential (∆T) at each terminal in order to significantly reduce energy usage, increase efficiency, and optimize the system performance. A further objective of the project was to install as much heating and cooling capacity as physically and economically possible to serve future growth and mitigate or delay the need for an additional utility plant in the future. Architecturally, the new CUP building is four stories tall with a total floor area of approximately 64,000 square feet. The CUP contains new equipment, including cogeneration, chillers, boilers, heat exchangers, pumps, water treatment, and other systems necessary for serving the power and thermal needs of the airport. The new chilled-water system is very energy efficient and employs variable-flow pumping on both the chilledwater and condenser-water loops. Similar to the old CUP, the new facility is also a hybrid plant, utilizing both electric and steam turbine-driven chillers. One large technological enhancement is the chilled water thermal energy storage tank located west of the CUP. The storage tank is made of insulated
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Team Members AECOM served as program and construction manager on behalf of Los Angeles World Airports. From the outset, the CUP replacement project was designated to be delivered using a design-build method of construction. Syska Hennessy Group (including Adamson Associates Architects) was engaged via Hatch Mott MacDonald to prepare the project criteria—architectural, mechanical, plumbing, controls, and electrical bridging documents—that would be incorporated into the request for proposal (RFP). Four design-build teams responded to the RFP and after a three-step qualification process, the joint venture of Clark Construction Group LLC and McCarthy Building Companies Inc. (Clark/McCarthy, a joint venture, aka CMAJV) was awarded the project in early 2010. The CMAJV design-build team was composed of the following organizations: • ARUP, engineer of record for mechanical, plumbing, electrical, communications, structural, and civil engineers • Gruen Associates, architect • Capital Engineering Consultants Inc., commissioning authority • Murray Company, mechanical contractor • SASCO, electric contractor • W.A. Rasic Construction, underground utilities contractor • KDC, low-voltage contractor • Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI), controls contractor
steel with a capacity of 1.53 million gallons of water, equating to 15,500 tonhours of cooling capacity at designed operating temperatures. The purpose of the thermal energy storage tank is to store chilled water created by the electric chillers during off-peak periods when electric rates are low and an electric chiller can be dedicated to filling the tank. The tank saves approximately 2 MWh of electricity for every peak hour it operates at design conditions, since it replaces a good portion of one electric- driven chiller. Hot water remains the heating medium for the airport, but it is delivered at a lower temperature (220°F) than the old CUP (280°F) and is, therefore, more energy efficient. Maintaining the same temperature differential permitted the existing piping network sizes to be retained. The steam is the primary source of heat that is delivered from the combustion turbine generators and the heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) to two shell-and-tube heat exchangers that generate low-temperature hot water. A New Cogeneration System Two Solar Turbines Mercury 50 natural gas-combustion turbine generators provide 4,179-kW output, each at 4,160 V during peak operating conditions. Furthermore, each turbine generator provides 12,900 poundsper-hour output of 150 pounds-persquare-inch (psig) steam from the
downstream heat-recovery steam generator in an “unfired” mode. The steam load requirements of a single-steam turbine-driven chiller was matched to the output of one unfired combustion turbine generator so that the CTG’s waste heat may be used year round. With the new CUP in operation for more than a year, it has become apparent there is a greater need to provide heating (more heating load) during the summer than originally thought, due to simultaneous heating and cooling occurring in the airline terminals. Therefore, the steam chillers will have less operating hours than originally assumed, since operating electric-driven chillers is more economical than the supplemental firing of the HRSGs to run steam chillers. The new CUP’s electrical distribution system allows the CUP to consume generated power directly. This is distinctly different from the design of the old CUP. A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical network station was considered initially, but was not economically justified at the time. A network station would have allowed the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to redistribute power from the CUP, and thus allow the combustion turbine generators to operate at 100% capacity so that all the power could be used internally at the airport and not exported to LADWP’s electrical grid. Without the network station, the
electrical output of the CTGs is limited to the power demanded by the CUP (chillers, pumps, fans, lights, etc.) and Central Terminal Area (street and parking structure lighting). If the electrical loads of the CUP and CTA fall below 50% of full load, then either the surplus electricity is exported to the LADWP electrical grid, or the CTG is de-energized. The current rate of compensation by LADWP for the CUP’s exported power is unfavorable and the CUP will export power only as needed for stable and continuous operation. Facility Monitoring and Control System The Facility Monitoring and Control System (FMCS) was required to integrate legacy controls (JCI Unity and NEXSys) from each terminal/building into a common monitoring system. This was accomplished using dedicated computers located in the pump rooms of each terminal/building that collect all the legacy trunk information and send it over the FMCS optical fiber network to a dedicated server in the CUP server room. The servers then convert the data into BACnet protocol, which is accessible by Wonderware, for overall monitoring and control purposes. The FMCS is highly scalable and will facilitate future initiatives to integrate, centrally manage or monitor building-wide systems throughout LAX. There is currently an “FMCS Extension” integration effort underway—separate from the CUP project—that will integrate the building automation system (BAS) equipment from several systems and buildings that were not available for integration at the inception of the CUP project. Significant Energy Savings Annual operating cost savings for the new CUP are estimated to be about $7 million, or 25% more efficient than the old CUP, based on the 2014 load base prior to connecting Bradley West to the new distribution system. The savings are from a combination of improved equipment efficiency, as well as the economic advantages of CHP implementation over the old CUP
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PROJECT PROFILE since LAWA can currently generate power more economically than purchasing from LADWP. Maintaining efficiency levels into the future will depend greatly on achieving high chilled-water and heating hot-water temperature differentials (∆T). Actual ∆T from the terminals must be maintained at or near the chilled water design ∆T of 16°F and heating water design ∆T of 50°F to preserve plant capacity and minimize pumping and overall CUP energy costs. Overall ∆T improvement to the chilled-water and heating hot-water system has been good so far, but room for improvement remains. Actual success in several terminals has been excellent, and there are notable increases from the old CUP operation due to the upgrades to the terminal pump rooms and FMCS/BAS. Terminal renovation projects continue to replace existing air handling units, coils, control valves, and actuators that will further improve the system ∆Ts.
Manufacturers’ Information 1. Chillers: York electric drive and steam turbine drive centrifugal chillers 2. Gas Turbines: Solar Mercury 50 3. Heat Recovery Steam Generator: Rentech Boiler Systems—single pressure, single evaporator 4. Pumps: B&G 5. Cooling Towers– CCS 6. Main Switchgear– GE 7. Facility Monitoring Control System/Building Automation System: JCI–Metasys, Wonderware, Allen Bradley Programmable Logic Controllers 8. Thermal Energy Storage Tank: CB&I
These future projects are encouraged to select equipment with even larger ∆Ts to benefit the global system performance. Completion of an electrical network station connecting the new CUP to the entire airport electrical grid is eagerly awaited. An electrical feeder from the CUP combustion turbine generators to the network station would enable the generators to run fully loaded so maximum efficiency and energy-cost reduction is achieved. The greater attention that ∆T obtains, the greater potential the new CUP has to achieve its design out-
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put capacity and mitigate or prolong the requirement for any future heating and cooling plant implementations at LAX. In December 2014, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners awarded a $961-million design-build contract for the new Midfield Satellite Concourse (MSC). Distribution piping will be extended west from Bradley west to serve the MSC, which will add new cooling and heating demands to the new CUP. Like any large vibrant airport, LAX will continue to expand and evolve to satisfy the growing needs of millions of domestic and international travelers. The new CUP will continue to satisfy the airport’s energy needs for many years to come. BE Dan McKelvie, P.E., is an executive with AECOM’s transportation group and has led many business practices and major programs during his 26-year career with the company.
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION 1. Publication Title: Business Energy. 2. Publication No: 1546-9751. 3. Filing Date: October 1, 2015. 4. Issue Frequency: Bimonthly with an extra issue in June. 5. No. of Issues Published Annually: Seven. 6. Annual Subscription Price: $76. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, CA 93105. Contact Person: Daniel Waldman, 805-682-1300. 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, CA 93105. 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Group Editor: Publisher, Daniel Waldman, 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105; Editor, Nancy Gross, 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105; Group Editor: John Trotti, 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. 10. Owner: Forester Media Inc., 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105; Daniel Waldman, 2946 De la Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1% or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None. 12. Tax Status: The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months. 13. Publication Title: Business Energy. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: September/October 2015. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Avg. No. Copies Each No. Copies of Single Issue During Preceding Issue Published Nearest 12 Months to Filing Date a. Total No. Copies 19,513 18,822 b. Legitimate Paid/Requested Distribution: (1) Outside County Paid/Requested Mail 17,053 16,651 Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (2) In-County Paid/Requested Mail Subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, 40 4 Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid or Requested Distribution Outside USPS (4) Requested Copies Distributed by Other Mail Classes Through the USPS c. Total Paid/Requested Circulation 17,093 16,655 d. Nonrequested Distribution: (1) Outside County Nonrequested Copies 1,798 1,611 as Stated on PS Form 3541 (2) In-County Nonrequested Copies as Stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Through the USPS by Other Classes of Mail (4) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Outside 611 550 the Mail e. Total Nonrequested Distribution 2,409 2,161 f. Total Distribution 19,502 18,816 g. Copies Not Distributed 11 6 h. Total 19,513 18,822 i. Percent Paid/Requested Circulation 87.65% 88.52% 16. Electronic Copy Circulation a. Requested and Paid Electronic Copies 3,229 3,616 b. Total Requested and Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Requested/Paid Electronic Copies 20,322 20,271 c. Total Requested Copy Distribution (Line 15f) + Requested/Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 22,731 22,432 d. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation 89.40% 90.37% (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100) 17. Publication of Statement of Ownership or a Requester Publication is required and will be printed in the November/December 2015 issue of this publication. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. – Dan Waldman, Publisher, 10/1/2015
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PROJECT PROFIL E
Miura Boilers Help Reduce Energy Consumption and Carbon Footprint at Duke MAJOR UNIVERSITY CONVERTED THEIR COAL-FIRED STEAM PLANT INTO A NATURAL GAS FIRED PLANT TO ACHIEVE LEED SILVER STATUS, AND REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS BY 25%.
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maintainability—as well as the ability to increase steam capacity to meet the campus’ annual growth rate of 200,000 square feet—without building additional plants or impacting the architecture of the historical building. Solutions Duke University decided to install 15 LX series gas-fired steam boilers from Miura America Company (formerly Miura North America), which increase the capacity on campus by 35%, produce steam in just five minutes, and produce
Miura
hen Durham, NC-based Duke University’s East Campus steam plant was built in 1927, it was a true marvel of its time. For about 50 years, the plant’s coalfired boilers supplied steam to heat the renowned campus until the plant closed in 1978. From that point, the West Campus Steam Plant held the burden to carry the load of both campuses in an attempt to become more efficient and cost effective. The university experienced exponential growth over the next few decades, and needed to increase steam capacity to keep up. In 2007, the decision was made to renovate and retrofit the East Campus Steam Plant with costeffective and energy-efficient boilers, a solution that could grow with the university.
Objectives/Challenges In 2008, Duke University expanded its sustainability Energy-efficient Miura boilers helped Duke initiatives to include a comUniversity receive LEED Silver rating in 2011, and have reduced the university’s mitment to reduce greencarbon emissions by 25%. house gases as part of the American College & Univerfuel-to-steam efficiencies of up to 85%. sity Presidents Climate Commitment Miura boilers feature an exclusive —which asks schools to develop a Cli“once-through” vertical-tube design that mate Action Plan to reduce emissions produces “on-demand steam” in just five and strive for climate neutrality. minutes (or less) while using less water To achieve this goal, the university and energy—which can save an average needed to immediately stop burning of 20% per year on fuel costs over tradicoal, and find a more efficient option to tional boiler designs. use in renovation efforts of the histori“We can have them on cold standby, cal East Campus Steam Plant. In order and then at full capacity whenever necesto maximize the output of the gas-fired sary—which creates a significant reducsteam production, Duke needed a systion in the energy losses associated with tem with a higher level of reliability and
a typical boiler cycle,” explains Russell Thompson, director of utilities and engineering for Duke Facilities Management. Results At full capacity, the 15 Miura boilers in the East Campus Steam Plant provide Duke with around 60,000 PPH in the winter, and 30,000 PPH in the summer. This allows the plant to increase efficiency by having standby steam capacity available during peak demand times. “From a total production standpoint, we’ve gone from producing 95% of our steam with coal, to producing 100% with natural gas,” describes Thompson. As a result of their energy-efficient, green design, the Miura boilers helped the university receive LEED Silver rating in 2011, and have reduced the university’s carbon emissions by 25%. The plant has also received 14 other awards for sustainability, design, historic preservation and reconstruction from a variety of organizations including the American Institute of Architects, the Society for College and University Planning, Brick Industry Association, and Associated Builders and Contractors—to name a few. To date, the university is on track towards its goal of becoming climate neutral by 2024—their centennial year. Avoiding the use of coal, and installing gas-fired Miura boilers, was a significant and crucial first step to reducing the environmental footprint and achieving this goal. BE
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Reader Profile BY CAROL BRZOZOWSKI
T
he concepts of energy efficiency seem so technical to those outside of the field that non-technical employees in commercial and government facilities don’t give it much thought—it’s beyond their comprehension. Scott C. Dunning, Ph.D., P.E., a professor and director of the School of Engineering Technology at the University of Maine, wants to change that. Dunning seeks to help companies develop a culture of energy efficiency by training entry-level employees in basic energy concepts. His tool: the Energy Efficiency Practitioner (EEP) program offered through the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE). Dunning partnered with his colleague Christopher Russell to create a customizable program to engage people from all disciplines in the process of implementing best practices at work and at home in energy efficiency. The idea came from a conversation with Al Thumann, executive director of the Association of Energy Engineers. They were discussing how many of the lessons taught to engineers as part of the Certified Energy Manager program could be shared with non-technical workers without the use of rigorous calculations. The result is a two-and-a-half-day course that covers the most common topics in energy efficiency and relates the concepts to typical residential equipment, providing attendees with a common frame of reference. “As people apply the knowledge in their homes and see the savings in their energy bills, they become engaged in the workplace to produce energy savings,” notes Dunning. What He Does Day to Day
The EEP course is one of several courses that Dunning has developed for AEE. The training courses are part of his outreach and professional development as director of the School of Engineering Technology at the University of Maine. His duties there include serving as academic dean for more than 500 students in four technical disciplines and teaching undergraduate classes in electrical engineering technology. What Led Him to This Line of Work
Dunning’s academic training was in electrical engineering, and he earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. at the University of Maine. His research focused on methods to optimize the
Scott C. Dunning
delivery of electricity through the nation’s power grid. After working as a power systems engineer for several years, he developed an interest in teaching and accepted a position on faculty at the University of Maine. Dunning was disappointed at the limited available research funding opportunities in power systems at the time, so he began focusing on energy efficiency. He received a recurring grant from the US Department of Energy in 1993 to establish an Industrial Assessment Center to train students in energy efficiency and provide energy audits for manufacturers. After seven years of energy auditing, he developed a desire to help Maine companies move beyond energy audits to new product development. He teamed with several like-minded faculty members, and the result was the University of Maine Advanced Manufacturing Center. He served as executive director of the new program from startup through construction of its current 30,000-squarefoot facility leading projects, ranging from new medical devices to complete manufacturing process lines. After five years, he was offered the opportunity to lead the School of Engineering Technology and has served in that position ever since. What He Likes Best About His Work
“Engineering training helps you develop insight into how things work and I really like applying that knowledge to help people,” says Dunning. “I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to teach energy efficiency to people throughout the world and I have really enjoyed learning from people I’ve met through the courses.” His Greatest Challenge
Dunning is passionate about raising awareness of how we use energy in our lives. “As humans, we can produce about one-eighth horsepower. Each day, I travel to work in a vehicle that produces 200 horsepower or the approximate work of 1,600 humans, yet most of us rarely consider that. Our natural desire is to improve our comfort and without energy awareness, we will continue to drive increases in world energy consumption.” BE Carol Brzozowski writes on the topics of technology and industry.
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