Cooling towers

Cooling Towers
This fact sheet is aimed at the enterprises that use evaporative cooling towers, which ranges from commercial operators (e.g. shopping centres, hotels, office towers) with large air conditioning systems to industrial sites (e.g. power generation, mining, petrochemical, food and beverage, metal products .) with air conditioning, refrigeration and/or cooling requirements.

Water saving factsheet:

Water saving options

A number of water saving opportunities may exist within your business and the benefit of each option will vary depending on your operation. Some common water saving options for cooling towers are summarised in the following table, though note, other more specific opportunities may still exist at your site for you to investigate. Savings and cost estimates are indicative only. Specific estimates based on your operations should be made before implementing an option. See the Ai Group website for other fact sheets on cooling towers and generating a water saving culture.

General types of cooling towers

Evaporative cooling systems are defined by their air flow patterns. Air flow through evaporative cooling towers can be natural draft, fan assisted natural draft, mechanical draft (induced draft) or mechanical draft (forced draft). Natural draft cooling towers are generally only used for the rejection of very large quantities of heat (e.g. power stations). Smaller industrial cooling towers tend to be either of the mechanical draft types. The air to water flow in evaporative cooling towers can either be cross flow (air flow is directed perpendicular to the water flow) or counter flow (air flow is directly opposite to the water flow).

Water saving benefits

There are significant benefits that can be realised through becoming more water efficient. These include reductions in:
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Water losses
Water is lost from a cooling tower system through several ways including evaporation (60-90%), leaks, overflow of the cooling tower sump, drift (or windage) and bleed (1030%), which is the intentional draining of a certain amount of water in order to decrease the build-up of salts in the system. The efficiency of cooling towers is affected by the chemical treatment regime, quality of the incoming water and the ambient air conditions. One of the measures of efficiency is the Cycles of Concentration (CoC) at which the unit operates, which is a term used to indicate the number of times the solids in a particular volume of water are concentrated. The CoC can be calculated by dividing the concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the bleed water by the concentration of TDS in the make-up water. Sometimes electrical conductivity (EC) or chloride concentration is used to calculate CoC. In Melbourne, cooling towers operate at 10 or more CoC, as the quality of make-up water is very good (e.g. TDS ~ 50 mg/L). In other areas, where the TDS of the make-up water is higher the CoC will be lower.

Costs water, wastewater discharge and wastewater treatment, maintenance. Remember, the cost of water is not just the cost of purchase, but includes, handling, heating, holding, treating and discharging often a 20-30 X multiplier. Energy consumption - energy and water costs are very often linked, e.g. reducing hot water for cleaning saves heating costs as well. Wastes wastewater treatment often results in the generation of prescribed wastes, which are costly to dispose of. Carbon footprint drops when energy use is prevented or saved and may soon be worth $20 per tonne CO2e or more.

Other benefits include (do a self test to see how much these are worth to you):
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Increased productivity Improved public image Increased staff morale/engagement Improved Occupational Health and Safety.

Things to consider when implementing water savingoptions

As always, before implementing a water saving option the potential downsides should be considered. These may include:

Water saving factsheet: Cooling towers

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Increased energy consumption: For example, replacing an evaporative (wet) cooling system with an air cooled (dry) system can sometimes increase the facility energy consumption. Increased wastewater (trade waste) contaminant concentrations: Overall quantity by mass (e.g. kg/day) may not increase, but concentration might. Talk to your water corporation to determine whether increasing concentrations are a safety issue in the sewer

or whether a treatment option may become available as a result e.g. a higher BOD may mean an opportunity for the generation of biogas and secondary generation of electricity. Increased maintenance requirements may occur, depending on the project.

Please contact Ai Group or your local water corporation when considering water saving options.

Water savings options cooling tower

= <5% total water saving, = 5-10% total water saving, $ = up to 10k, $$ = 10k - 100k, $$$ = > 100k Option Cost 0-$ Option Description Increase the set point at which the cooling tower bleeds water (the cycles of concentration) depending on incoming salt concentration Monitor cycles of concentration to determine if leaks/ overflows are occurring and eliminate. Look for: Incorrectly positioned ball floats Faulty operational controls Excessive return water overflowing the sump Control the bleed from towers using a conductivitymeter Replace inefficient drift eliminators with most efficient models (0.002% loss) Reduce the cooling load (e.g. increase the air conditioning temperature set-point) Automate the dosing of chemicals to optimise Install a water softener on the cooling tower makeup water to enable the cycles of concentration to beincreased Install a side-stream filtration unit if suspended solids levels are high (e.g. dusty areas) Reuse bleed water in other plant operations where practical (e.g. toilets, irrigation). Re-use cooling tower dump water for low quality end uses (e.g. toilet flushing, cleaning, irrigation) Re-use side-stream backwash water for low quality end uses (e.g. toilet flushing, cleaning, irrigation) Treat bleed water using Reverse Osmosis and reuse as make-up water Examine use of recycled water from adjacent facilities if available. Replace wet cooling towers with a hybrid unit (combined air and evaporative cooler) Use air-cooling rather than evaporative cooling Check that towers are appropriately sized and replace inefficient, oversized units with multiple smaller units = > 10% total water saving

Water Saving

Hierarchy Category Reduce

Reduce

$ $ $ - $$ $ - $$ $ - $$ $ - $$ $ - $$ $ - $$ $ - $$ $$ $$$ $$ - $$$ $$ - $$$ $$ - $$$

Reduce Reduce Reduce Reduce Reduce Reduce Re-use Re-use Re-use Recycle Recycle Reduce Avoid Reduce

Source: Water efficiency and water saving factsheets for Industry, PB, 2008

Further information
Contact Ai Groups Energy and Sustainable Business Helpdesk on 1300 733 752 or at sustainablebusiness@aigroup.asn.au or visit the Ai Group website at www.aigroup.com.au.
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