Preparing For Temporary And Emergency Steam Outages

Steam is extremely important in the power industry. When boilers are out this can often lead to losses and issues of production. Many plants need to operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week without an interruption and when there is no steam available, this can become very difficult.

There are many factors in a steam plant that can change the availability and reliability of steam supply. Steam plants can go down for a number of reasons such as planned maintenance, equipment retrofit, increased capacity, emergency repairs, and more.

Preparation For The Emergency

In order to adequately prepare to resume production even without steam, you need to be able to plan for the sizing of an emergency boiler and what your production output should be. For positive production, you need a proper sizing indication and this means determining your capacity requirement. The amount of steam you need is usually conveyed in pounds per hour or horsepower. You need to determine what this horsepower may be based on the selection of your rental boiler.

Mobile steam plants can deliver a water softner, blowdown separator, feedwater system and a prepiped and wired or mounted system. It is often delivered on the back of a trailer and this can limit the size of the mobile plant output.

A tailer inclosed model has a firetube boiler and it can be mounted inside of the van or in a container. A trailer mounted boiler is a water tube boiler and this is often delivered for mobility. A skid mounted boiler is the smallest and it can usually be moved with a forklift ona  traditional skid.

These types of boilers often range between 50-1000hp with a range of up to 250,lbs per hour. The largest trailer mounted boiler working independently can produce a max of 110,0000 lbs per hour using a superheated steam and to go beyond that capacity you will need to combine the use of multiple boilers.

Your Operating Requirements Need To Be Defined

From your fuel source, operating pressure and your available power all need to be assessed before you can determine if you are able to operate the correct equipment. The steam temperature, gas pressure and water sources all need to be considered to make sure you can meet your needs.

Auxiliary rental equipment or a plan for producing the adequate amount of steam will be a requirement for your emergency plan. Be sure to identify the location of installation, handle the appropriate rigging and plan for all maintenance for your auxiliary or backup steam production. Ongoing inspections and appropriate maintenance on your main boilers and emergency boilers is a must.

If you would like to learn more about emergency systems and how you can prepare for steam outages accordingly, contact us today. We can show you more on the latest in operating requirements and how you can prepare for an emergency in output.

For nearly half a century, Swartz Engineering has been at the forefront of industry safety. They are a family-owned company specializing in power distribution for the electrical industry. They are the leading manufacturer of Portable Substations.