Efficiency Upgrades

Saving fuel by increasing boiler room efficiency has become a priority in the heating and process industry.

Sterling Combustion Inc. has the experience, engineering capability and installation expertise to provide the best available technology and to complete an energy efficiency upgrade on any commercial or industrial application where existing burners utilize mechanical or pneumatic combustion control schemes.

Replacing outdated burner control schemes will result in an annual fuel cost savings of between 4% and 12%. In most cases, the savings will pay back the upgrade cost in less than a year. It is also important to realize that the percentage of fuel saved will represent an equivalent reduction in harmful emissions.

To maximize the efficiency of any boiler, two factors are of paramount importance: the air-to-fuel ratio adjustments and the temperature or pressure of the boiler. Our experience has proven that the use of linkageless combustion control schemes will drastically improve the ability to characterize a precise air-to-fuel ratio throughout the firing range of a burner; in addition, the settings will be repeatable and consistent without the requirement for routine adjustments.

Mechanical systems that involve cams and linkages to characterize the air-to-fuel ratio are not accurate throughout the firing range or are not responsive enough to actual boiler temperature or pressure changes. This results in the required set point value being continuously exceeded or insufficient when load demands change.

Linkageless combustion control technology removes these inaccuracies and allows the air-to-fuel ratio to be adjusted to a minimum, ensuring complete combustion within the limitations of the burner combustion head design.

With linkageless control, the temperature or boiler pressure is monitored by the combustion system so that the exact amount of fuel and air are fired to achieve the target value regardless of load changes.

Well-engineered microprocessor-based linkageless combustion control systems will have the capability to control independent servomotors and the speed of the combustion air fan via a variable frequency drive to achieve the absolute best burner performance. During commissioning, the relative positions of the servomotors and fan speed can be adjusted to provide an optimum air-to-fuel ratio throughout the buner's firing range.