Optimising power-plant efficiency Hamon Group

The Hamon Group is a global leader in engineering, contracting and project management for cooling systems, heat exchangers and pollution control. Philip Yorke looks at the impressive growth of this international group and its pioneering contribution to waste heat recovery and cooling systems for some of the world’s largest power-plant projects.

OPTIMISING POWERPLANT EFFICIENCY

The Hamon Group is based in Mont-StGuibert, Belgium and is a global leader in the field of engineering, contracting, design and project management. The company’s diverse activities include the design and manufacture of critical components, as well as the installation and after-sales servicing of cooling systems, process heat exchangers, air pollution controls and industrial chimneys employed in power generation projects. This market sector includes oil and gas installations, as well as other heavy industries such as metallurgy, glass and chemicals.

The Hamon Group is committed to the sustainable development of its processes and manufacturing activities, as well as to providing its customers with innovative systems and cutting-edge technology at the most competitive prices. The Hamon Group is divided into five distinct business units: Cooling systems, Heat Exchangers, Air Pollution Control and Industrial Chimneys.

Advanced, power-saving cooling towers

Back in the early 1980s many of the world’s large power plants were equipped with tall natural draft cooling towers (NDCTs). At that time they were wrongly associated with nuclear power plants and very few were constructed in the west because of the lack of large power plant projects and obvious visual impact constraints. However, this trend is now reversing due to the significant power saving that modern NDCTs can generate. In addition to the benefits of power saving, NDCTs offer silent operation as there are no cooling fans employed, and offer greatly reduced maintenance costs. Furthermore, they are compact and provide greater operational longevity, often much longer than plant life expectancy.

Hamon has designed and built more than 300 NDCTs worldwide and has unparalleled expertise in this field. This includes specialised installation projects in hazardous and seismic risk areas as well as in locations exposed to severe weather conditions. Hamon is also committed to offering the most cost-effective solutions for the entire lifetime of field-erected cooling towers and has a wide range of heat transfer media suitable for any industrial water and seawater installations, as well as those requiring low pH solutions.

Pioneering air-cooled condenser technology

Thanks to the Hamon Group’s ranking as a leading world-class supplier of dry cooling systems, the company recently received one

of the biggest orders tendered for in the power generating sector. This involves the supply of 10 lines of air-cooled condensers (ACCs) for the prestigious PP10 power project in Saudi Arabia, which will increase its power capacity by 40GW over the next ten years.

This prestigious contract was awarded to Research Cottrell Dry Cooling (RCDC) a long-serving member of the Hamon Group, in January 2012, and forms an important part of the strategic future power plan of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The plant is located in Riyadh which is a desert region that has to import all its water from desalination plants along the coast over 400km away. The utilisation of the Hamon Group’s advanced RCDC air-cooled condenser technology avoids the consumption of cooling water, which was a key requirement of the Saudi Electricity Company.

RCDC’s scope in its contribution to the project includes the engineering and manufacturing of the ACC bundles as well as the procurement of complete systems, including pumps, vacuum units and piping. The site erection will be carried out under the supervision of RCDC in 2013 and the start-up is planned to commence in 2014. This new ‘super-project’ will increase the sales of Cooling Systems BU by around 15 per cent in 2012 and 2013 compared to company sales in 2011.

Milestone agreements signed in China

Towards the end of 2011, the Belgian Economic mission to China took place and this was led by HRH Prince Philippe, where two signing ceremonies were inaugurated involving Hamon Thermal Europe. At this significant signing, Hamon entered into a

memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (CNPE). This confirmed the Hamon Group’s cooperation in the construction of a series of large, natural draft cooling towers for China’s latest nuclear power plants.

During the formal meeting, Hamon and China Nuclear Power Engineering agreed to cooperate on the design and implementation of the super-large cooling towers for the Hue Xianning nuclear power plant. These towers were conceived to maximise power plant efficiency and to contribute to the protection of the wildlife on the river by avoiding the warming of its waters. These Hamon Group Towers will set a new world record, being the largest natural draft cooling towers ever constructed.

Francis Lambilliotte, Hamon CEO, said, “I am very proud to sign these two milestone agreements. Hamon is a century-old company that continuously improves on its technologies developed by generations of engineers. It’s thanks to these investments that we sell our products across the world, even in the most competitive markets.”

New acquisition boosts growth prospects

A few months ago, the Hamon Group completed its acquisition of Deltak, a global leader in the design and construction of waste and heat recovery solutions, as well as heat recovery steam generators for the power and process industries. Since it was founded in 1972, Deltak has developed a blue-chip portfolio of clients that rely on its innovative solutions to meet their energy needs.

This latest acquisition will create significant added value for the Hamon group, which is already recognised as a world-leading supplier of cooling systems. Synergies between the two companies will be fully exploited as the Deltak customer base is the same as that of the Hamon Group. Furthermore, the acquisition will allow the group to become more active in the combined gas-fired generation, cycle-power industry, which is expected to see substantial growth in the years to come. n