Case Study
Medway Maritime Hospital
Automatic boiler blowdown from Spirax Sarco helps Medway Maritime Hospital save energy
Medway Maritime Hospital has shaved 2 to 3% off its main boiler house energy bill with the installation of two automated systems for boiler blowdown from Spirax Sarco.
The automatic TDS (total dissolved solids) systems monitor the build up of contamination in the boilers and initiate a boiler blowdown when the level of contaminants reaches a preset threshold. Before the installation of the Spirax Sarco systems, staff at the Kent-based hospital carried out periodic blowdown operations on the two boilers by hand.
“With manual blowdown we didn’t know exactly how often to blow down so we had to err on the side of caution,” says the hospital’s Technical Engineer - Environmental, Phil Belton. This meant that the hospital was discarding more hot water than necessary.
“We identified the blowdown operations as one of the areas in the boiler house that could play a part in our carbon reduction operations. After all, we were spending an average of around £40,000 every month on boiler fuel,” says Mr. Belton. “We’re extremely pleased with the results.”
“We identified the blowdown operations as one of the areas in the boiler house that could play a part in our carbon reduction operations. After all, we were spending an average of around £40,000 every month on boiler fuel. We’re extremely pleased with the results.”Technical Engineer - Environmental, Phil Belton.
As well as saving energy, automating the blowdown process also saves significant amounts of water and treatment chemicals.
Mr. Belton highlights a further benefit: “One other main bonus is the freeing up of manpower, so instead of losing a guy twice a day doing manual blowdown he can be doing other jobs. It’s a way of semi-automating the boiler house.” The two Spirax Sarco TDS systems have now been operating for over a year and have proved very reliable. “They’ve given us no problems whatsoever,” says Mr. Belton.