December 21, 2007

Turbines for Saturated Steam??? - More Energy - More Savings

Traditionally, the cogeneration of steam and electricity has been restricted to plants that generate superheated steam, making the recovery of energy losses from saturated steam impossible for many industrial sites ranging from distilleries to pharmaceutical plants and pulp-and-paper mills.

Pennat International Corp promised to change that with the introduction of its new Energy Conversion System (ECS) Series of saturated steam turbines.


Yes Steam turbines which operate with saturated steam as motive fluid.

The turbines, which can also function with superheated steam, generate incidental electrical power while regulating and maintaining steam pressure like a conventional pressure-reduction station. They are intended to be installed in parallel with the existing pressure-reducing valve (See Diagram below) or pressure-reducing desuperheater station and process-control software tasked with managing the pressure consistency of reduced-pressure process streams.

With steam typically produced at significantly higher temperatures and pressures than needed for its intended process application, the turbines promise greater resource efficiency, reduced energy consumption and associated environmental benefits.

For the past eight years, Pennant has installed specially commissioned versions of its saturated-steam turbines for facilities in India, Dubai and elsewhere. The costs of system and installation vary based on steam throughput, but can be around $400,000for a 77,000-lb/h saturated steam flow and $250,000 for a 22,000-lb/h flow.



However, with power savings of $325,000/ yr and $135,000/yr, respectively, Pennant estimates payback periods of less than two years (assuming in both cases an operation time of 8,000 h/yr and an energy cost of 6.33 ¢/kWh). The ECS Series is a slightly more modular concept based on the needs of the typical industries that would use them and function within a pressure range of 50–700 psi. Units will be ready to ship within months.

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