Consulting-Specifying Engineer - August 2007 - (Page A5)

PLANT & BUILDING UTILITIES AT A GLANCE ❯ Long history as a E N E RGY SOLUTION S CE NTE R residential product commercial markets found novel industrial application New Applications for ❯ New uses found in Tankless Water Heating Systems n energy product that initially was seen as suitable for a few market niches has found many new friends including, surprisingly, some in the industrial sector. This product is the tankless water heater. ❯ Paper converting plant ❯ Application simpliﬁes operations and saves energy A AN APPLICATION IN PAPER CONVERTING INDUSTRY An example is a recent installation of six Rinnai gas-ﬁred tankless water heaters to provide hot water for mixing glue for the manufacture of corrugated boxes at a plant operated by Smurﬁt-Stone Container in Montgomery, Alabama. According to Lewis Myrick from Smurﬁt-Stone, the water heaters supply 5,000 gallons of water at 110°F over a 24-hour period. In early 2006, the units were installed to replace an earlier steam water heating system. Myrick indicates, “The steam used a lot of energy from our boilers, and we were throwing away the chemicals used in our boiler process. It was almost impossible to control without high maintenance cost.” ORIGINALLY USED FOR RESIDENTIAL APPLICATIONS When the tankless water heat was introduced decades ago, it was seen as a solution for the residential user that had a remote point of hot water usage, far from a central water heater. Over time, the tankless approach found many other applications. Gasﬁred tankless units provide a continuous and abundant source of hot water anywhere in the home. They reduce the needs for large central water heaters and eliminate standby losses. Another application growing in popularity is use of the tankless heaters to supply hydronic heating systems in residential and commercial applications. The Smurﬁt Stone industrial application used six tankless units, shown here, to supply hot water for a gluemixing process in corrugated carton manufacturing. TROUBLE-FREE PERFORMANCE Myrick notes that he is pleased with the results of the conversion, and would recommend it to other industrial users because the installation has been maintenance-free for 16 months. He says that the only technical hurdle at the beginning was to ﬁgure out how many units were needed to meet the batch demand for hot water. The gas utility for Smurﬁt-Stone Container’s Montgomery plant is Alagasco, an Energen Company, which was interested in the application from the beginning. According to Robert Anderson from Alagasco, the company sees this as a new application of a familiar technology, and is collecting data on the installation. Jim Tilley from Energen agrees. “Smurﬁt is happy with the installation because they have lowered their operating expenses. In addition to the energy savings, the tankless water heaters do a better job of maintaining water temperature in the glue process.” Tilley feels that there may be other signiﬁcant applications for tankless water heating technology in industry. With ﬂexible natural gas as its fuel, the tankless unit is making new ❮GT❯ friends all the time. For More Information Navien America, Inc. www.navienamerica.com Rheem www.rheem.com Rinnai www.rinnai.us Takagi www.takagi.com TANKLESS HEATERS NOW IN COMMERCIAL SECTOR The tankless unit has moved into the commercial sector, now being widely speciﬁed for many commercial applications. Interesting new applications have been found for tankless heaters, even on the industrial side. A5 http://www.navienamerica.com http://www.rheem.com http://www.rinnai.us http://www.takagi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Consulting-Specifying Engineer - August 2007

Contents M/E Roundtable Giants 100 Pullout Poster Giants Stand Tall: CSE Giants 100 Report Electrical Design for Tall Buildings HVAC and Fire Safety for Elevator Systems How to Beat the Codes GAS Technology Supplement Recovering Waste Heat from Boilers New Applications for Tankless Water Heating Systmes Techniques Improve for Powder Coating MDF New Tools Available for Heat Treating Steel Direct Drive Engines

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - August 2007

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