Laundry saves £30,000 thanks to flash steam recovery 12 September 2012

Commercial laundry Bates of London is reporting savings of tens of thousands of pounds in energy since installing FREME (flash recovery energy management equipment) plant, from Spirax Sarco.

According to Spirax Sarco's calculations, installing the new system would save over £30,000 – a figure verified by a consultant from the Carbon Trust, which secured funding for the project.

"Due to other projects that were commissioned around the same time it's quite hard to put an exact figure on it, but it is noticeably contributing to the overall savings we are achieving," states Bates of London managing director Matthew Pantlin.

"Our boilers now run much more efficiently with the Spirax system installed [and] I am sure the equipment will have paid for itself within two years," he continues.

"We've invested quite heavily in energy saving equipment for both environmental as well as costs saving reasons," adds Pantlin.

"We had already installed some equipment to reduce the amount of flash steam being released, but we still had some losses that generated a flash plume. The Spirax Sarco system was installed as part of a wider energy saving drive and successfully eliminated the remaining plume."

Spirax Sarco points out that returning condensate from the steam distribution system to the boiler house and using it to heat the boiler feed tank is an extremely effective energy saving measure. Every 6°C temperature boost in boiler feed water knocks 1% off a typical boiler energy bill.

However, up to half of the recoverable energy in the condensate can be lost to atmosphere as flash steam, generated as condensate leaves the pressurised steam system and returns to ambient pressure.

Spirax Sarco's FREME overcomes this problem and, where practical, enables the usable heat in the condensate to be returned to the boiler.

Brian Tinham

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