Cooling Tower Water Treatment Using Industrial Vortex Generator Technology for Water and Energy Savings
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Energy Research and Development Division FINAL PROJECT REPORT Cooling Tower Water Treatment Using Industrial Vortex Generator Technology for Water and Energy Savings Gavin Newsom, Governor June 2021 | CEC-500-2021-035 PREPARED BY: Primary Authors: Mukesh Khattar, Ph.D. Sara Beaini, Ph.D. Aaron Tam Alekhya Vaddiraj Ammi Amarnath Electric Power Research Institute 3420 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 http://www.epri.com Contract Number: EPC-15-087 PREPARED FOR: California Energy Commission Michael Lozano, P.E. Project Manager Virginia Lew Office Manager ENERGY EFFICIENCY RESEARCH OFFICE Laurie ten Hope Deputy Director ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT DIVISION Drew Bohan Executive Director DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, its employees or the State of California. The Energy Commission, the State of California, its employees, contractors and subcontractors make no warranty, express or implied, and assume no legal liability for the information in this report; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This report has not been approved or disapproved by the California Energy Commission nor has the California Energy Commission passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the information in this report. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The researchers on this project first acknowledge and thank the California Energy Commission for supporting this research and development effort with technical guidance and funding. Additionally, the researchers would like to acknowledge and thank Southern California Edison, through the leadership of Paul Delaney, for supporting the project with cost share funding, customer engagement, technical support, and guidance. The researchers on this project acknowledge H2O Vortex who has supplied the Industrial Vortex Generator Technology. Additional acknowledgements go to the Cypress, Ltd. subcontractor team led by Tom Smolarek, Rich Minetto, Dave Evans and Scott Stroup that supported technology installation, field monitoring, and measurement and verification. Additional acknowledgements go to the Amgen and Marriott Hotel sites that hosted the technology testing and evaluation. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) acknowledges the input and guidance from the participants of the project technical advisory committee, including the California utilities Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, and San Diego Gas and Electric, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The EPRI team acknowledges their colleague and dear friend, Dr. Mukesh Khattar, Principal Investigator and Project Manager, who guided the project team with technical rigor. Dr. Khattar passed away unexpectedly in February 2020. This and many other projects are dedicated to his memory and career legacy that included innovative work providing environmental and societal benefits through energy, water, and operational efficiencies. 1 PREFACE The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Energy Research and Development Division supports energy research and development programs to spur innovation in energy efficiency, renewable energy and advanced clean generation, energy-related environmental protection, energy transmission and distribution and transportation. In 2012, the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) was established by the California Public Utilities Commission to fund public investments in research to create and advance new energy solutions, foster regional innovation and bring ideas from the lab to the marketplace. The CEC and the state’s three largest investor-owned utilities—Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison Company—were selected to administer the EPIC funds and advance novel technologies, tools, and strategies that provide benefits to their electric ratepayers. The CEC is committed to ensuring public participation in its research and development programs that promote greater reliability, lower costs, and increase safety for the California electric ratepayer and include: • Providing societal benefits. • Reducing greenhouse gas emission in the electricity sector at the lowest possible cost. • Supporting California’s loading order to meet energy needs first with energy efficiency and demand response, next with renewable energy (distributed generation and utility scale), and finally with clean, conventional electricity supply. • Supporting low-emission vehicles and transportation. • Providing economic development. • Using ratepayer funds efficiently. Cooling Tower Water Treatment Using Vortex Process Technology for Water and Energy Savings is the final report for Contract Number EPC-15-087 conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute. The information from this project contributes to the Energy Research and Development Division’s EPIC Program. For more information about the Energy Research and Development Division, please visit the CEC’s research website (www.energy.ca.gov/research/) or contact the CEC at [email protected]. 2 ABSTRACT The industrial vortex generator technology for cooling towers (IVG-CT) provides an innovative low-energy physical method for treating water in cooling towers for commercial and industrial applications, providing water, energy, and chemical savings. The researchers installed and evaluated the technology at two commercial building host sites in Southern California: a hotel (two 450-ton chillers) and large pharmaceutical company (two 1250-ton chillers). IVG-CT can supplement traditional water treatment practices with a more environmentally sound, repeatable, and efficient approach that achieves water savings by safely increasing cooling tower cycles of concentrations, a metric used to measure the amount of water being reused in the cooling tower, and energy savings by improving the heat transfer in the chiller heat exchanger. The IVG-CT is a plug-and-play side-stream water treatment unit combining multiple physical treatments. Reduction in scaling and fouling of heat exchangers, coupled with removal of microbubbles and hydrodynamic cavitation, helps increase the overall heat transfer of the cooling tower. Measurement and verification consisted of monitoring equipment power consumption and chiller cooling capacity for a year. A comparison of kilowatt-hours per ton-hour for each chiller before and after installation of IVG-CT (following the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol) showed a reduction of chiller plant energy of between 5.4 percent and 6.4 percent at the two sites. The results confirmed substantial water and chemical savings at both host sites: 30 percent for the hotel site with typical practices and 15 percent for the pharmaceutical site with best practices. Chemical use cost reductions ranged from more than 30 percent at the hotel site to around 45 percent at the pharmaceutical site. Keywords: Physical water treatment, cooling tower, vortex, chiller, energy efficiency, water, chemical Please use the following citation for this report: Khattar, Mukesh, Sara Beaini, and Aaron Tam. 2021. Cooling Tower Water Treatment Using Industrial Vortex Generator Technology for Water and Energy Savings. California Energy Commission. Publication Number: CEC-500-2021-035. 3 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................1 PREFACE ............................................................................................................................2 ABSTRACT ..........................................................................................................................3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 Project Purpose ................................................................................................................1 Project Approach ..............................................................................................................2 Project Results .................................................................................................................2 Technology/Knowledge Transfer/Market Adoption (Advancing the Research to Market) ........3 Benefits to California ........................................................................................................4 CHAPTER 1: Project Overview and General Project Tasks ......................................................5 Background and Motivation ...............................................................................................5 Cooling Towers ................................................................................................................5 Cycles of Concentration .................................................................................................7 Project Goals and Objectives .............................................................................................8 Project Scope ...................................................................................................................9 Project Specifics ...............................................................................................................9