KEH has over 45 years of experience in improving the efficiency of boilers and boiler plants. Your boilers should operate with a minimum efficiency of 85% and the plant should have a minimum efficiency of 80%. KEH has designed systems where the boiler efficiency on a fuel input - output basis (that's energy in fuel versus heat absorbed in boiler water and steam) exceeded 100%. If you don't believe it, search this site for an explanation, it can be done
KEH has discovered there's a consistency in oversizing boiler capacity to the detriment of efficiency of the boiler and the plant. Add "outsizing" where conservation efforts including additional insulation, double glazing, and other measures to reduce the heating loads and you have a boiler that's way too big for the job. That oversized, outsized boiler can be operating at efficiencies as low as 50%. Rightsizing by modifying or replacing that big unit can provide significant fuel savings.
An economizer can improve the efficiency of the typical power boiler by 6% and increase the capacity by 8%. The economizer must be sized and applied correctly to do it. No,whatever you may have seen or heard, one common economizer for all the boilers in the plant is not going to save money, it can actually waste it.
An air heater can improve the efficiency of the typical power boiler by 6% but it doesn't increase capacity. The air heater must be sized and applied correctly to do it.
A condensing heat exchanger can increase boiler efficiency to values as high as 96%. In order to realize that kind of recovery the facility needs a low level sink that can absorb the heat. Facilities with high boiler water make-up requirements or high service (domestic hot water) demands or similar uses of low level heat can benefit from the proper application of a condensing heat exchanger.
KEH has designed and supervised installation of many waste heat recovery installations from small systems to one that recovered over 100 million Btuh. That system, now retired, was installed in 1984.
KEH can show you how to improve your heat balance to increase the proportion of steam supplied to the process.
Savings of 5 to 25% are possible by upgrading boiler plant operating controls. KEH has implemented control strategies on boilers ranging in size from 20 boiler horsepower to 500,000 pounds per hour (15,500 boiler horsepower)
KEH has gleaned information from hundreds of operating boiler plants and learned what programs work for his customers and which ones create problems.
To engage KEH Energy Expertise in a review of your boiler plant send an E-mail from the KEH home page.
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