POWER February 2017 - 31

COMBINED HEAT AND POWER
New Options in Industrial CHP
Boost Efficiency and Returns
Courtesy: MAN Diesel & Turbo
Combined heat and power (CHP) has long been a popular option for industrial selfgeneration,
but new technologies and business partnerships are taking the sector
well beyond the traditional boilers and diesel gensets.
Thomas W. Overton, JD
T
he Erving Paper Mill in the western
Massachusetts town of the same name
has operated for more than 100 years.
Once part of a thriving industry, it's now one
of a few remaining New England paper mills
still clinging to life. Battered by foreign competition,
paper mills like Erving have continued
operating by finding profitable niches
(Erving supplies products like recycled napkins
to the food service industry) and keeping
costs as low as possible.
Opting for modern self-generation is one
way the mill has helped safeguard its role as
one of the town's largest employers. Paper
mills have long relied on captive combined
heat and power (CHP) plants, often fired by
waste materials, but these aging boilers are
drawing attention from environmental regulators
concerned about emissions. Erving
had a small fuel oil-fired boiler and steam
turbine, but this old system was no longer
sufficient even after being converted to natural
gas. The mill needed to improve the reliability
of its power and steam supply while
February 2017 | POWER
increasing its energy efficiency and reducing
overall energy costs.
In 2014, the mill turned to New Hampshire-based
Waldron Engineering & Construction,
which partnered with Maine firm
Engineered Construction Services to supply
a new gas-fired, gas turbine-based CHP plant
(Figure 1). Built around a dual-fuel Solar
Taurus 60 turbine and a 600-psig heat recovery
steam generator (HRSG) equipped with
Honeywell Eclipse duct burners, the plant
now supplies most of the mill's power and
all of its process steam. Emissions are kept
low by a selective catalytic reduction system.
The plant completed testing and entered
operations this past October, having met all
the mill's targets for improving costs and efficiency.
Waldron Engineering CEO Terry
Waldron told POWER that the improvements
in efficiency also earned the mill rebates
from the utility and state.
One wrinkle with Erving's CHP plant is
that it relies on compressed natural gas delivered
by tanker trunk instead of a pipeline
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hook-up. Storing fuel on site insulates it from
disruptions in the local natural gas system, a
problem New England has experienced during
recent winters (see " New England Struggles
with Gas Supply Bottlenecks " in the
June 2013 issue). When necessary, it can also
1. Not papered over. Erving Paper
Mill's 105-year-old paper plant has a new Solar
Taurus-powered combined heat and power
(CHP) facility that supplies most of its power
and all of its process steam. The highly efficient
plant has cut Erving's energy costs
while improving the reliability of its power and
steam supplies. Courtesy: Waldron Engineering
& Construction
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http://www.powermag.com

POWER February 2017

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