Industrial Pumps Blog

Pumping installations consume a large portion of the total power consumption of the entire operating system.  It is essential for commercial profitability that pumping systems operate efficiently and effectively. Inefficiencies incur a financial cost in terms of additional power consumption and increased total costs of ownership, in particular they are more expensive to operate due to higher maintenance costs, including both scheduled and unscheduled incidents.

The US Department of Energy has issued a three step process for assessing pumping installations on a standardized basis. In addition, the DOE report advises the use of a detailed assessment of pumping installations combined with a Pumping System Assessment Tool (PSAT) which highlights the cost/benefit aspects of the efficiency result and solutions.

#1 Identify the Major Elements and Equipment of the Pumping Installation

Larger items of equipment are usually the greatest consumers of power and the source of the largest opportunities for implementing solutions for energy and pumping efficiencies. Most pumping installations will find that they already qualify as a large-scale installation to begin with, so it makes sense to focus on the largest pumping elements first and work down from there.

#2 Identify Fixed Speed Pumps Used in a Variable Load Application Environment

Fixed speed pumps are not efficient across all load situations. This provides an opportunity for efficiencies to be found and the DOE notes the following situations which are of particular interest:

• Multiple parallel systems which are in continuous operation;
• Throttle valve control systems;
• Pump bypass lines or recirculation lines are normally held in the open position throughout operation;
• There is cavitation noise;
• Constant operation of the pumping system in a batch environment;
• Incidence of high maintenance captions, both scheduled and unscheduled; and
• Pumping systems which have undergone substantial alteration in their function or there has been a significant change in demand for their output.

#3 Check Pump System Performance Data & System is appropriately Matched to its Application

Design inefficiencies frequently result in mismatching of pumping installations to the operational requirement. Building safety margins into the initial design frequently results in inflation of the margin as the design proceeds through further iterations. This inflation of the safety margin is responsible for the frequent over capacity seen in many pumping installations, and it is not unusual to find a industrial pump installed which has double the actual capacity required for the system’s effective operation.

The Three Gorges Dam is one of the largest engineering projects ever undertaken in the world, and certainly it is the largest dam ever.  It is not simply sheer size which makes the Three Gorges Dam special; it has a total electricity generation capacity of 22,400 Mega Watts (MW) which requires a 24/7 x 365 oil pumping system to govern the hydropower unit. Such a huge system requiring continuous operation presents a number of unique and highly challenging engineering problems.

The original industrial pump which was installed failed to operate successfully requiring them to be replaced.  Before replacements could be sourced, a detailed analysis of the pump system which had broken down had to be undertaken, including returning to the original design parameters for the electricity generating system, to understand the challenges and reasons for failure.  There was also the design challenge of having to come up with a work around solution in order to implement a modified installation to the existing infrastructure.

Only after a detailed analysis was conducted could a new engineering solution be implemented.  The new pumping system now incorporates fail safe technology together with properly loaded pumps to handle the capacity which is generated.  The replacement solution is now in situ and operating successfully.

For an energy hungry such as China, the Three Gorges Dam is only part of a series of power generation infrastructure projects which are being developed to supply energy to one of the world’s fastest growing, manufacturing based economies.  Despite the size and scale of the Three Gorges project and other energy generation projects, there is still the need to curb electricity usage in major Chinese cities today – a sign that further projects and more efficient power usage will need to be developed further.

Power plants need to be efficient: they can’t afford downtime as this is costly. The pumping system is at the center of a pumping plant and must be reliable and operate to maximum capacity at all times. A power plant is contracted to supplying its customers with their product. The inability to supply the product, due to mechanical and other failures, can result in severe financial consequences and potential loss of business. In addition overall running costs escalate while maintenance is undertaken so the effect can three fold if a power plant has downtime.

Power plant operators need to work in partnership with other organizations that provide advice and support to ensure their power plant runs efficiently and is technologically up-to-date.

Different power plants require different skills but the knowledge gained from one type of power plant can be extensively used in another. Power plant partners need to be able to provide solutions to increase production, improve reliability and reduce costs. A partner needs to be able to prove its experience and skills and to deliver results.

Power plants deal in many aspects of oil delivery, each requiring specialist knowledge. The techniques employed and the efficiencies learned in delivering one type of fluid can often be utilized in another type of fluid so working in partnership with an experience organization has multiple benefits.

Power plant partners combine the skills and knowledge gained from operating and advising others. It’s important to ensure that they have the ability to offer help and solutions to all areas of power plant management.

Introducing and implementing the solutions presented by power plant partners improves reliability and production rates ensuring that the product can be delivered on time to the customer. A power plant benefits from increased production and improved customer relations. Costs reduce and profitability increases.

After the electric motor, pumps are the most ubiquitous machine in the world and as such, they have a tremendous impact on how much of an impact we make upon our environment.  We rely upon pumps to deliver clean drinking water, to deliver fuel to our car engines, to make our refrigerators and washing machines work, and so many more applications. In this instance, we refer to “greener pumping systems” as ones which use less energy or utilize fewer material resources in their construction and design.

Reducing energy consumption by pumps is a highly effective way to make pumping systems greener.    The primary opportunity to make pumps more energy efficient is in the appropriate application of pumping technology to the application.  Using pumping solutions which are not well-designed or suitable for the use to which they are being put will render the environmental cost in terms of inefficient energy consumption, inordinately high.

In addition, deciding upon an appropriate pump type is also essential for efficient pump operation generally and not simply energy consumption.  Inefficient pump operation will not only consume greater energy for work performed units, but will also result in great material consumption by the installation in respect of shortened life cycle and increased maintenance and repair materials required.

The road to greener pump solutions starts with a proper assessment of the pumping system and work which is required to be performed.  Immediate gains in pumping efficiency can be achieved by concentrating on pump sizing at the design stage.  The average pump only operates at 40% efficiency while 10% of pumps operate at less than 10% efficiency – more than half of pump installations are operating at less than 50% efficiency resulting in a huge waste of energy being consumed.

Greener pumping systems can also be achieved by focusing on the materials used in the construction of the pumps themselves.  Modern design tools allow for precise calculations of stress limits which means better material use can be designed into the construction of the pump itself.  By minimizing the amount of material needed in construction, a greener pump results however the pump’s structural strength and capacity are still within the design tolerances needed for the pumping solution to perform its job.

The Three Gorges Dam is built on the Yangtze River, China and it is the world’s largest electric generation facility of any kind.  It is a key infrastructure project for the Chinese government which has created huge controversial debate both within China and internationally.  China is developing at a very fast rate as it moves to a fully-industrialized economy after years of being largely an agricultural society.

There are huge demands being placed upon the Chinese government for energy, especially electricity from industry and residential demand created by the surge in growth of the major urban areas.  At the same time, China is being urged to reduce its carbon footprint and emission of greenhouse gases which is driving the development of hydroelectric projects such as the Three Gorges Dam.  While seeking to satisfy these two demands, the Three Gorges Dam has resulted in a huge controversy over the localized environmental damage and change created by the construction and establishment of the dam.

The dam construction was completed in 2006, and the bulk of the generation infrastructure has also been completed by 2008, however issues have arisen with the pumping packages.  Pumping solutions for a project of this scale are breaking the boundaries of technology and understanding of performance criteria.  Recently, a set of pumping packages failed to meet expectations and in some instances, the housings were damaged causing a rethink of the pump solutions involved.  The industrial pumps are required to be in continuous operation and must be capable of operating under extreme stress levels.  Unique challenges also include the variations in outlet pressure as the dam level rises and falls and identifying and designing for this fluctuation has been extremely difficult – there is after all, no comparative project to rely upon elsewhere in the world.

Once completed, the Three Gorges Dam will produce over 100 TWh per annum, and it is thought that the electricity generated since commencement of operations through to September 2009, has already covered one-third of the cost of the project.

Excessive maintenance requirements on older lubrication pumps will quickly result in direct cost increases associated with excessive downtime due to maintenance.  Further, when ancillary pump systems such as lubrication pumps, require maintenance downtime out of synch with the main power plant maintenance schedule this serves to further increase both direct and indirect costs associated with running an older lubrication pump system.

A major Southeastern US electric utility company was in this exact position with a lubrication system serving GE 7F gas turbine generation plants.  The older lubrication pumps were experiencing high failure rates resulting in loss of operating revenue and increased maintenance costs as a direct consequence of unscheduled major maintenance.

The solution was to replace the older lubrication pumps with modern equipment which led directly to a three-fold increase in the unscheduled maintenance interval.  A further direct and indirect cost saving was achieved by acquiring the ability to synchronize scheduled maintenance of the lubrication system with the turbine fleet.  The end result of this project was to extend the scheduled major maintenance from an annual basis to every three years which relieved the adverse impact of both excessive scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on operating and financial performance.

An initial objection to conducting such a swap-out is that the though the initial costs are outweighed by the operating benefits, the downtime involved in effecting the swap out will lead to unacceptable levels of base performance from the turbine fleet.  This can be obviated by using a “plug and play” approach; the swap-out can be achieved in far less time and with vastly reduced downtime if the replacement units can be fitted onto the existing mountings – by having the ability to simply removing the old pump and fitting the new replacements directly onto the existing mountings, the installation can be achieved in far less time.  By using a solution provider prepared to work with the existing infrastructure, installation downtime was minimized while allowing the utility to take advantage of the greatly improved maintenance situation.

“Small is Beautiful” may not typically be the first thing on people’s minds when they consider nuclear power.  The stereotypical image of a nuclear reactor is of enormous, bulky and alien looking power generation plants with a high risk tag attached to them!

Nevertheless, smaller is one of the design trends which is occupying the minds and energies of power generation innovators and “Blue Sky Thinkers” with micro-reactor plants being considered as well as moving towards passive cooling systems which do not require the multiple-redundancy layers of coolant and power supply redundancy that forced coolant reactors require.

Forced coolant reactors rely upon a complex and multiple redundancy system to ensure reactor safety.  This also requires exceptional planning and risk scenario forecasting on the part of designers and operators as they attempt to come to terms with “What If” game playing and worst case scenarios that must be anticipated and have a solution prescribed in order to ensure safe operation.  So far, the United States has managed to ensure an excellent safety track record in the last fifty years but the potential for hazard is still there – we only need to remember the risk posed by the Long Island incident.

Passive cooling does not require any forcing of coolant around the reactor and because there is no requirement to force coolant, there is no requirement for the multiple redundancy layers of protection to be incorporated into the design.  This has an obvious impact on the cost of constructing and operating passive coolant reactors but does a passive cooling system make for a safer power generating plant?

The short answer is “No!”  The risks inherent in operating a nuclear power plant still remain and the advantage of using a passive cooling system lies in the savings in capital and operating costs.  This said, smaller reactors do use reduced “source terms” which are utilized in accident and risk scenario computations, but smaller means “more” in this instance, as such reactors are envisioned for use to provide power for individual office blocks and neighborhood zones – the risk is simply being transferred over wider areas with larger numbers of small, passive cooled reactor plants.

The three key metrics for measuring power plant operations are Uptime, Availability and Reliability.

Power plant engineers and operators need to rely on pumping systems to ensure all three metrics are maximized in order to meet contractual power supply standards as well as operate profitably.  Mission critical applications must be designed and maintained to the highest possible standards as the contractual penalties as well as lost revenues created by downtime or impeded power production can and will be fatal to the operator.

Operators and engineers must ensure they are supported by a supply partner with deep application experience and a wide range of high efficiency pumps and fluid control systems as well as the hands-on knowledge that comes only from operating an extensive network of installations in a variety of challenging environments.

Many installations and processes employ a range of skill sets with considerable cross-fertilization of knowledge gained from handling different power plant types – fossil fuels, diesel and oil, hydro and nuclear facilities.  In addition, techniques and skills employed in moving one type of fluid can be used to help in delivering results in other circumstances – you need a solutions partner with experience and skills in fluid control with crude oil, distillate oil, kerosene, bio-diesel, residual oil and NAPTHA.

Experience is also needed in delivering solutions and equipment for power generation systems for the Balance of Plant and ancillary power generation equipment used in water removal and water-oil separation.  In addition, there are ancillary pumping operations and applications which require the ability to deliver lubrication, fuel oil injection, water purging and fuel oil forwarding and transfer as part of an integrated and holistic approach to power plant management.

By combining the experience, skills and broad product range from a solutions partner, power plant operators can ensure maximization of plant availability, uptime and reliability.