Sustaining Reliability of Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) Starts with Proper Actions
For decades, Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP)
has been proved to be the most effective, efficient, and reliable equipment in controlling and reducing particulate emission from the stack in various heavy industries such as cement plant, pulp & paper plant, power plant, biomass plant, etc.
In order to meet the global environmental protection awareness and comply with the country’s stricter air pollution control regulations, many of the above mentioned plants are struggling to fix and cope with arising issues from their aging ESPs on a daily basis.
In fact, ESP problems can cause tremendous pressure and frustration to many plant personnel at all levels in an organization, from operating and maintenance team to managerial and chief executive officer. When ESP is malfunctioned, emergent shutdown is necessary resulting in production halt, and of course, loss of revenue.
What does your ESP need?
An ESP is a highly efficient filtration device that removes dust particles and fine particulate matter from the flue gas stream of a plant production line using the force of an induced electrostatic attraction principle before the cleaner gas (air) is released from stack into the environment.
To achieve the above effect, both mechanical and electrical equipment/parts are indispensable. Some main mechanical parts are collecting plate, discharge electrode, and rapping system. For electrical, there are power supply/transformer, controller, and integrated system. When an ESP has been running for quite number of years, its internal parts start to age, wear off and deteriorate. This calls for some necessary actions such as inspection and troubleshooting, part replacement, major/minor maintenance, rehabilitation, retrofit and upgrade, etc.
Tackle your various ESP problems with expertise and professionalism.
There are numerous factors and causes contributing to ESP problems. When they occur, inspection and troubleshooting are needed to find the root causes in order to fix them. However, there often are more to ESP problems than meets the eye.
With inexperienced eye and ignorance, simple wrong actions of part replacement may worsen the problems and cause even higher risk of ESP failure that results in huge expenditure than what is supposed to be just because real root cause is not found.
Let us share two stories of our customers for whom we had the opportunities to provide our services and indeed help to solve their problems with our in-depth knowledge and vast experience on different ESP types, sizes, and designs/OEMs. Both of them are bagasse-fueled biomass plants.
First plant: Power Boiler ESP / 9.9 MW, Tai & Chyun design/OEM, built in 2012.
Throughout the years, we have performed quite a number of ESP services at this plant i.e. mechanical and electrical inspection, troubleshooting, mechanical replacement, and controller retrofit in order to maintain stable operating condition and improve emission.
Take troubleshooting as an example; the plant had a controller problem and it caused their ESP to trip and thus resulted in thick black smoke coming out of the stack. We were contacted urgently of the serious emergent issue and within 3 days, one of our experienced engineers was dispatched there to help out. Countermeasure was carried out to solve the problem at hand and contingency plan was provided for further action and prevention.
Second plant: Power Boiler ESP / 30.0 MW, Indian design/OEM, since September 2012.
After their ESP was installed in 2012, they had never done any necessary inspection, maintenance, or replacement ever since. In fact, they did not know how, the ESP hopper often full and clogging and it might lead to ESP trip.
Tai & Chyun was awarded to perform inspection service to find out root cause and advise proper solutions. After that, we gradually executed more and more important and greater variety of turnkey projects such as annual repair, maintenance and cleaning, collecting plate and discharge electrode replacement, rapping system controller installation, including spare parts supply. For every project completed, a comprehensive final report was submitted for record and future reference.
Take parts replacement as an example; the plant experienced worsened dust collection performance of their ESP and thus resulted in higher emission level. After replacing the collecting plates and discharge electrodes under proper supervision, their ESP could reach maximum secondary current. In another word, stronger electric field means better dust collection efficiency.
The above figure is a V-I curve showing maximum secondary current of 600mA during the no-load test.
In conclusion, for an ESP to operate effectively and efficiently not only part renewal but also proper and correct installation method, inspection and troubleshooting are critical actions in order to maintain the operation reliability and prevent unnecessary cost and time consumption.
We understand and are ready to be of assistance. With over 20 years of experience, Tai & Chyun specializes in Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) solutions across Southeast Asian countries aiming to improve emission and stabilize plant production efficiency.
