Animal feeds company installing steam traps at 13 UK site
18 Jan 2010
Cheltenham, UK – TLV has won a contract to provide regular steam trap surveys of all 13 BOCM Pauls animal feed processing sites throughout the UK. The company’s sites located on the west side of the country, where rich dairy grass is more common, are predominantly dedicated to ruminant feed; and those on the east side to pig and poultry feed.
Most of the steam generated by the plants is used for direct steam injection, which sterilises the meal to eliminate salmonella and conditions it with moisture to help begin the cooking process before it is extruded and pelletised. In addition, steam is used to maintain the required temperature in storage tanks, which pre-heat liquids that are added to the meal during the cooking process.
As the BOCM sites are regulated by the Environment Agency, the company’s Environmental Steering Group successfully gained accreditation under the ISO 14001 Environmental Standard, which provides a framework for the development of an environmental management system and a supporting audit programme. As part of the system each site needed to monitor energy usage in order toimprove efficiency and reduce energy usage.
Environmental Steering Group member Graham Reith, BOCM Pauls’ Carmarthen site manager explains the implications of ISO 14001 and the reasons for commissioning the initial TLV steam survey: “While electricity is used to run the processing machines, with each mill typically using 1.5mW, the meal is sterilised and pre-conditioned using steam. The moisture in steam also acts as a lubricant while the meal is extruded through the pellet die, helping to reduce the energy needed to run the extruders.”
As an engineer with many years experience in steam, Reith was aware that some of the steam traps on his site were passing, but without sophisticated equipment it wasn’t possible to identify which ones were faulty. So with steam playing such a vital role in processing he decided to ask TLV to carry out a steamsurvey at the site.
The survey was conducted using TLV’s latest TrapMan TM5 testing equipment, which is claimed to be the only system verified by the Lloyds Registry. The kit is designed to determine whether a trap is working correctly and quantify the steam losses in traps that are leaking.
As a result of the survey, TLV was able to compare the costs against the volume of steam lost through faulty or leaking traps. The figures showed that there was potential for significant energy loss, and encouraged Reith to highlight the problem at the next steering group meeting. This led the company to undertake a survey of its 12 other sites
Whilst it was difficult to quantify results at all sites, a combination of the figures produced by TLV and substantiation from site managers and engineers, confirms that BOCM are making considerable savings. Actual savings vary depending on the meal produced at the sites, as ruminant meal is typically conditioned at around 60 degrees centigrade whereas the temperatures for pig & poultry meal will vary between 80 and 90 degrees centigrade.
Besides providing information on the condition and performance of steam traps the TLV TrapMan survey also identified all the steam traps at all thirteen sites, allocated each a specific number and tagged them. In addition, by attaching coloured discs indicating whether a trap was leaking (red disc) or not working (blue disc), the survey has made it much easier for the maintenance team to find faulty traps that are noted in the survey reports as needing attention.
The total number of traps tested across all BOCM sites was 552, of which 89 (16%) were found to be leaking. The TLV survey estimates the financial cost of the leaks at £95,000 and the environmental cost at 435 tonnes of CO2.
According to Reith, managers at sites that had experienced a higher percentage of failed traps have already reported significant reductions in steam wastage and energy costs. The financial and environmental costs, he added, have encouraged the committee to continue surveying the 552 traps at six-month intervals. “
TLV, general manager Mike Povey added: “From a bio-security viewpoint steam is an effective way to produce pellets, and for BOCM Pauls it is now proving to be an efficient way to reduce energy consumption.”
