2009-05-06 - A new ABB service product for industrial boilers has slashed fuel costs at a leading U.S. chemical plant by $300,000 a year – a remarkable achievement equivalent to about 2.5 percent of the facility’s annual natural gas expenditure.
By
ABB Communications
The new ABB boiler optimization service known as the Boiler Fingerprint was performed on four small industrial boilers at the Arkema chemical facility at Calvert City, Kentucky, a site which includes the world’s largest HFC-32 refrigerant production plant.
The annual fuel savings range from $101,000 for the site’s workhorse boiler to $52,000 for an old and less frequently used unit. Even the two most modern and efficient boilers at the site produced impressive savings of $71,000 and $76,000 respectively.
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Boiler Fingerprint uses ABB boiler and process expertise to improve operating efficiency and reduce fuel consumption of industrial boilers.
The payback time for Arkema was a matter of weeks and the boiler efficiency improvements and fuel savings are sustainable, year on year.
In fact the results were so impressive and the return on investment so rapid that Arkema is in discussions with ABB to roll out Boiler Fingerprint at other sites among the 36 chemical manufacturing facilities it operates worldwide.
The Boiler Fingerprint is a fixed-price service product that builds on ABB’s vast expertise in boiler and process optimization to improve the operating efficiency and reduce the fuel consumption of industrial boilers.
Aimed at industrial facilities, which rarely have the requisite boiler expertise onsite, the Boiler Fingerprint is a three-step program for diagnosing inefficiencies, implementing improvements and ensuring that the improvements are sustained over time.
It begins with a diagnosis to compare boiler performance with industry standards and boiler capability. From this, a performance benchmark for the boiler is generated and an improvement plan drawn up. Once the boiler has been optimized, additional services are available to ensure that the improvements are sustained.
The Boiler Fingerprint is currently achieving similar levels of success in other installations in the United States and is to be rolled out worldwide by ABB in 2009.