Cooling water systems are often the most overlooked of the essential manufacturing support utilities. Typically, we see systems that: 

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• Use engineering concepts that are 20, 30 or more years old

• Have outgrown their systems and designs but remain stuck with old equipment added to old equipment

• Are production-critical, but frequently operated within a marginally controlled performance envelope

• Forego opportunities to take advantage of seasonal conditions and changing load requirements.
   

This causes most systems to run below capacity, with low efficiency, and with excessive maintenance requirements and costs. Hallmarks of these systems are constant pumping year-round, frequent motor and compressor replacements, temperature control by cycling tower fans, and normal part loading of chillers.

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These systems eat maintenance resources and capital dollars — if they meet the basic cooling requirements.

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It’s even worse if they don’t.  Plants with poor cooling try resolving performance issues by blindly adding towers, increasing pump horsepower, installing more chillers, etc. Operating in this manner negatively impacts EBITDA while increasing capital, with the added pain of further increased maintenance costs on the extra equipment.

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Compare a cooling water system to a “typical” plant compressed air system*: the air system has essentially one pipe “loop” (the air flow to the plant) with many branches and several parallel “pumps” (the compressors).  We’ll call this a loop by assuming the exhausted air is returned to the compressors such that it’s a complete circuit.  The air is supplied at one pressure (with some variation) for use throughout the plant.  If one compressor fails or is running poorly, it does not affect the operation of the others except through the increased load they must carry.

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By contrast, a simple cooling water system may have as many as four separate loops – the tower recirc loop, the tower water process loop, the chiller recirc chilled water loop, and the chilled water process loop; and these may also all have different branches, parallel and series pumps, and widely different cooling flow & temperature requirements.  Further complicating things, the performance of one component or group (e.g. the cooling towers) affects the linked equipment and may limit the available output, hurt the efficiency, or both on the total system.  This complexity provides both risks and opportunities when managing cooling systems.

 

As a solution to this, we customize water cooling systems so they are optimized. Your system should work for you, more efficiently and with greater cost savings. With an ISG system, you don't have to worry about breakdowns, frequent maintenance costs and slow production. 

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*Of course compressed air systems can be quite complex, for example a two-tier system with 500+ psi in a PET bottle plant.  We’re referring here to standard single pressure air systems with a handful of compressors, typical to many industrial plants across industries.