- 21 Sep 2012
SPP Energy, working initially in the UK and expanding to Europe, is focussed with their Energy Audits to raise awareness of, and cost-effectively reduce power consumption within power stations.
Often Kaizan Studies, or Energy Efficiency Drives, concentrate on the ‘Big 10’ power consumers, omitting pumps entirely. Whilst their combined power consumption is ranked lower than other systems, the total power consumption is often not known. Pumps rarely operate at their best efficiency point and efficiency degrades at approximately 1% per year.
For four 5MW Main Cooling Water Pumps (MCW), the energy bill alone would be £4.38 million, assuming a 100% utilisation and a cost per electrical unit (kW/h) of £0.10p.
Pump System Assessments often save in excess of 30% of the system running costs, with some recent cases saving over 47%.
Using the example of these MCW Pumps, a saving in excess of 30% on £17.52 million per year = £5.26 million.
Considering an asset life cycle of 20 years, the total energy bill would be £350.4 million and the potential saving therefore £105.12 million - significant in anyone’s terms.
This is just one example of a pumping system within a Power Station. Although the heat source differs from Coal Fired, and Dual Fuel Gas and Oil, though to Nuclear and Hydro Power Stations, the overall efficiency is much less than 100%. This results in many opportunities to save energy on their pumping systems.
For further information, contact Claire Comber, Marketing Manager, on 0118 932 5289.