Fuel consumption cut by 26 percent
A new furnace was being planned at Ohio Valley Aluminum Company. The company was generally satisfied with its existing burner equipment, but wanted to see if any supplier other than the current one would promise–and deliver–better performance than had been achieved from furnaces on line at the time.
ITS was challenged in the form of a guaranteed end result. ITS had to meet or exceed the operating parameters of existing burner equipment within the plant. If the new burner equipment failed to measure up, ITS had to remove the burners at no charge to Ohio Valley, and then install the competitive brand burners, also at no charge to Ohio Valley.
Gaining A Benchmark
To establish a baseline, Ohio Valley and ITS monitored two existing furnaces in the plant for 90 days. The statistics obtained gave both parties a clear picture of all parameters and established the targets ITS must meet or exceed.
Rising Above The Challenge
Armed with the 90-day test data, ITS went to work. In conjunction with its supplier, Stordy Combustion Engineering Limited of the UK, ITS put together a burner system designed to out-perform the furnaces tested at Ohio Valley.
The new Stordy burner was installed and the same test parameters were kept for 90 days so that the baseline data could be compared with the data from the previous test of existing furnaces.
And The Winners Are
The winners are Ohio Valley Aluminum, Stordy Combustion and ITS. Comparisons showcased the remarkable efficiencies of the new Stordy-equipped furnace. The Company stated that fuel consumption was 25 percent less in the new furnace.
The Aftermath
Since installing the first burner system, ITS has retrofitted another of Ohio Valley’s furnaces with it’s higher efficiency Stordy burners.
In addition, Ohio Valley has mandated that the company change over to ITS burner systems for all melting and holding furnaces in the plant.
Why the change? Gas usage and overall efficiencies, the economics of it are just too good to ignore.
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