| 
|
Show me the savings. That’s the stimulus behind an innovative water pretreatment process that delivers dramatic energy-use reductions—cuts amounting to 1.68 million gallons of water use, and 11.2 million therms of natural gas—during its first year of operation. It’s an impact that’s sustainable year after year. Management at International Truck and Engine Corp.’s facility in Melrose Park, IL, teamed up with GE Water & Process Technologies (W&PT) to take on an OWT project involving the incorporation of dealkalizer beds into a boiler system. The project’s contract was tied to a guaranteed amount of cost savings in its first 12 months. While some may scoff at these terms, this vendor/customer partnership takes on the challenge without looking back. In large part, the significant energy and cost savings outcome is less about products—and far more about creative people and processes.
International Truck and Engine is a leading producer of mid-range diesel engines, medium and heavy trucks, and severe service vehicles. Well recognized for a corporate-wide commitment to the environment, the company reports that its consistent energy conservation efforts have saved more than $78 million in raw materials and waste disposal since 1992. International’s top management sets aggressive conservation goals for each of its facilities, requiring each plant to submit plans as to how these goals will be met. More often than not, each plant engineer will tackle the task with a Six Sigma-type approach to waste elimination. A data-driven process said to produce breakthrough results, Six Sigma is defined as a strategy that assesses relevant process capabilities, uses statistical tools to select and implement an appropriate design, and proves the real-world performance of the selected design. For example, the Six Sigma process was used to achieve lead reductions at the company’s assembly plant in Springfield, OH.
International’s plant in Melrose Park, IL, is a 2.5-million-square-foot facility that houses the manufacturing of approximately 70,000 I-6 diesel engines per year. It is also the corporation’s research and development center, and is the test site for new engine products. Since steam is used for engine testing, increases in R&D demand will significantly affect boiler-room operations. Consequently the operation is continually challenged to work more efficiently by finding opportunities to reduce the consumption of water, natural gas, or chemicals.
The Pretreatment Challenge
During a new engine product launch several years ago, Michael Church was a plant engineer for International’s Melrose Park plant. He was charged with overseeing the boilers, the power generation system, air compressors, and HVAC. As his department consumed the largest portion of natural resources, he knew that he needed to reduce the impact. He consulted with GE Water & Process Technologies (formerly Ionics Inc.). “The GE representatives determined that significant reductions in water usage and energy consumption could be achieved by purifying the makeup water that enters the boilers in the first place. Now this makeup water, which comes from the city water system, passes through the dealkalizer beds before entering the boilers,” says Church.
 |
| The International Truck and Engine Corp.'s industrial facility at Melrose Park, IL, uses on a boiler makeup system to remove dissolved minerals from its water supply. |
As explained by GE W&PT engineers, industrial plants rely on boiler makeup systems to remove dissolved minerals from water. If these minerals are not removed, mineral scale deposits form on the heat transfer surfaces, causing inefficient heat transfer and increased fuel costs. Chemical or mechanical cleaning can remove these deposits, but in the case of excessive deposits, boiler tubes can leak or fail.
The degree of boiler feed water purification required depends on the operating pressure of the boiler. Low-pressure steam systems typically use softening by ion exchange (IX), while medium pressure steam systems typically require softening and dealkalization. High-pressure systems require the removal of nearly all the minerals in the water by various methods of demineralization.
When GE W&PT started its evaluation at International’s Melrose Park facility, the scenario was this: Three boilers are used to generate steam. Ninety percent of steam production is used for heating, and 10% is used for manufacturing processes. Just as was outlined by GE W&PT, impurities in the water become more concentrated in the boiler when the steam is generated, causing a marked reduction in boiler efficiency. Chemicals are used to mitigate the problem. When the impurities reach an unacceptable concentration, a “blowdown” process kicks in. Impurities that collect at the bottom of the boilers are flushed out to the city sewer. Next, makeup water is added to replace the quantity that is lost, resulting in wasted water, natural gas, and chemicals to reheat the makeup water. Additionally, the heated wastewater from the blowdown process must be mixed with more city water to reduce the temperature before it can enter the city sewer system.
Guaranteed Savings
GE W&PT and its customer approached the pretreatment challenge according to what International terms as a “cost improvement project” or CIP format. In a nutshell, it’s a review process of data—before, during and after the system installation—that supports the savings projections as well as any aspects of the system that may actually increase costs. Importantly, the vendor needs to guarantee that it will meet ROI goals. If the goal is surpassed, the vendor receives a bonus.
“International started focusing on these types of incentive programs about seven years ago. On every new contract or project, we try to raise the bar,” says Church. “In other words, who really wants the business and who wants to work outside the box? If the vendor comes up with an excellent project, they are rewarded with added incentives,” he says.
The business culture at GE W&PT is a good fit for the CIP format. Recognizing employees for their exceptional efforts in helping customers succeed is an integral part of its mission, says the company. In fact, its Proof Not Promises Award honors its front-line field people for how much they save for their customers, and not for the amount of chemicals or products that they sell.
“Basically it all comes down to the cost impact. Where will we gain the biggest bang for the buck? When we examined the pretreatment project at International, we looked at dealkalizer systems, and also at reverse osmosis (RO) systems,” says Steve Majerus,
a W&PT technical sales representative. After taking a look at long-term maintenance costs, and first-time capital expenditures, the analysis shows that the use of dealkalizer beds to purify the incoming water will deliver the most cost-efficiency and bottom-line savings,” he says.
Two dealkalizer beds are installed to feed the three boilers. The system is designed as a self-contained, twin tower system that regenerates itself. As the resin bed in one dealkalizer unit gets dirty, the system reverts to the alternate bed while it regenerates the dirty one. Using soft water, the debris is backflushed from the dirty bed, while the other tower continues to function. Since the regeneration of each bed takes up to two hours, the alternating bed system allows the boilers to run round the clock with no interruption in service. “Even the initial installation of the system caused little disturbance to our boiler operations,” says Church, who explains that additional piping and valving was put in place to act as a bypass system while the new equipment was being installed. Once the dealkalizers were in place, the bypass was switched over and the dealkalizers were ready for operation.
Essentially, the dealkalizer beds purify by reducing the alkalinity of the water that enters the boilers. As a result, fewer impurities build up in the boiler. As such, the need for a blowdown process is far less frequent. This accounts for the annual reduction of 1.68 million gallons of water use. It also means that fewer chemicals are lost down the drain. And perhaps most important is the creation of a much more efficient steam system with a reduced scale in piping and heat exchangers. This leads to the annual 11.2 million therms of natural-gas use reduction, a savings that is exceptional considering today’s rapidly rising energy costs.
Because of the project’s success, International Truck and Engine was a recipient of GE W&PT’s 2005 Ecomagination Leadership Award, a distinction bestowed upon companies that meet serious environmental challenges head-on.
Ongoing Conservation Benefits
International Truck and Engine has been working with GE W&PT for more than four years, and each year the partnership is committed to finding new, additional methods of conservation.
For example, even though the savings from the pretreatment system compounds each year, the incentives awarded to W&PT are applied only to the first year of the new system’s operation. For the vendor, there is no resting on one’s laurels.
 |
| Designed as a self-contained, self-regenerating system, two dealkalizers feed three boilers at the Melrose Park facility. |
“We guarantee the realization of a certain amount of savings per year. However, we are allowed to capture only one year of savings per project. After that we must look at another project that will net the savings goals. For International, that might mean finding new savings by adding softeners to the cooling towers as well, for example,” says Majerus.
“So if one looks at the energy and cost cuts that are realized year after year from each of the projects we complete, it’s clear that our customers enjoy a tremendous amount of savings even after working with us for a relatively short period of time,” he adds.
“GE W&PT offers us a one-stop shop,” says Church. “They take it from the equipment side as well as the chemical side, so I don’t have to call anyone but them. I have one contact and that is a great benefit,” he says.
GE W&PT serves many industries and many different water treatment applications. As to the purification of boiler feed water, W&PT offers a wide variety of treatment systems, including ion-exchange softeners and dealkalizers, reverse osmosis systems, ion-exchange demineralizers, and electrodeionization systems (EDI).
The company also accesses several different technologies for the removal of dissolved gases, including both dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Additionally, one of its newest innovations is a Web-based management tool (InSight) that collects, stores and reports the data used to evaluate the performance levels of these treatment systems.
But aside from systems, equipment components, and technologies, it is people and processes that have the greatest impact on continued conservation efforts.
CAROL WASSON owns JCL Marketing & Communications Inc.
OW - May/June 2006 |
