Air in-leakage in power generation - improving and
operating vacuum systems at peak performance.
operating vacuum systems at peak performance.
| In today’s power generation plants efficiency is a key performance indicator. Inefficiencies come from a wide variety of sources. For instance, vacuum in a steam turbine generation plant’s condensers maximizes plant thermal efficiency. Unfortunately, long vacuum pipe runs often develop cracks, pin holes and leaky valve seals, which allow external air to enter the system. This air has to be removed with additional vacuum pumps. As power plants age, pipes, seals and joints also deteriorate, and air in-leakage becomes ever more significant. In addition, outside air brings many impurities into the system, which eventually will cause corrosion throughout the boiler feed water system. Air in-leakage has a negative impact on condenser back pressure and increases corrosion and tube fouling, contributing to lower operating efficiency. These problems will significantly drive up the plant’s running costs. Intek, an Ohio manufacturer of highly specialized instrumentation, has developed a system to monitor and address these inefficiencies. Intek’s RheoVac monitors use sophisticated multi-sensor probes to measure and compute various parameters in the condenser exhaust line. RheoVac’s four primary sensors measure flow, temperature, pressure and relative saturation. An electronics unit, connected to either one or more probes, displays the parameters locally and provides an output (typically Ethernet) to deliver all the information to the plant data acquisition system. Engineers can take advantage of the information gained from the RheoVac monitor to troubleshoot condensers and vacuum systems and increase overall plant efficiency. This case study shows how an energy marketer made significant savings by using the RheoVac system. Click here to read it. Contact us for additional information or a quote. |
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