Cooling Tower Repair and Your Environmental Impact

Most operators in the Manufacturing and Food & Beverage (F&B) sectors are looking at a COVID-19 enforced backlog of repairs. Along with unpredictable weather conditions, that means keeping your cooling towers in good condition has never been more important.

Whether you’re running a steel mill, a paper and pulp plant, or a Food & Beverage (F&B) factory, controlling temperature is hugely important. Cooling towers lie at the heart of many operations, removing excess heat created during production and allowing operations to continue uninterrupted.

As such a key piece of infrastructure, any downtime caused by damage, failure, or repair work can be hugely costly, threatening to grind production to a complete halt and taking out a large chunk of revenue. Extreme weather can be very problematic, and the kind of direct contact applications used in steel, paper, and pulp manufacturing can lead to residue build-up and, in the worst cases, a cooling tower collapse.

At the same time, operators need to consider their environmental impact, reducing water usage and protecting their immediate surroundings. So how can Aggreko’s temporary utilities help take the strain? And what are the main cooling considerations for operators today?

We spoke to Billy Childers about the uses and risks facing cooling tower operators, and the biggest things you need to consider.

Increased equipment risk

COVID-19 has seen operators tear up carefully laid plans time and time again. So it’s no surprise that non-urgent repairs have repeatedly been delayed and postponed, leaving many facilities with long lists of jobs to be completed. Naturally, that leaves equipment at greater risk of breakdown.

To add to the problem, economic demand is recovering far more quickly than expected, putting even greater pressure on production. “Everyone’s trying to play catch up,” Billy explains. “The economy has ramped up much faster than people were prepared for, so many of these facilities are running at higher rates than before.”

That, potentially, spells disaster. “The combination of deferred maintenance and the need to produce more has led to a situation where plants are trying to run harder. So there’s more risk of emergencies happening.”

Limiting shutdowns is more difficult than ever

In normal times, repairs to cooling towers would be carried out during small windows of shutdown, such as over a weekend or week-long operational break. With such a backlog of repairs, however, the numbers just don’t add up.

“The cooling towers aren’t the only thing that has been neglected,” explains Billy. “So the problem is that now there’s less time for shutdowns because of greater production needs, and more repair work that needs doing. Plants don’t have enough people to do that maintenance and those turnarounds, so everybody’s trying to catch up.”

The solution? Spread out your workload

Temporary utilities can be the answer to getting all the work done. By stepping in to provide temperature control, temporary cooling allows towers to be taken offline at a more convenient time for isolated, focused repair work.

“By providing a temporary solution for the cooling tower, operators don't have to rush, they can take their time. They’re not trying to shut down on Friday and come back up a week from now, working 24 hours a day” Billy tells us.

“They can divvy up the workload and focus on their cooling tower at any time. It’s like running a car while yours is in the shop: if you can drive a rental car, that makes it much more manageable.”

Flexible equipment for any application

Beyond repair work, temporary cooling towers can help manufacturing and F&B facility operators balance their production without investing significant capital expenditure. For example, Aggreko has years of experience in processing dirty water from direct contact applications, supporting the removal of excess heat generated by fermentation and brewing, or reacting quickly after extreme weather events to get plants back up and operational, fast.

“In the pulp and paper or steel industry we regularly help with supplemental applications, such as cooling wastewater where microorganisms are used to remove a waste product,” Billy tells us. “If the water temperature gets too high those microorganisms will die, so we help our customers cool the water.”

Aggreko can also help with direct contact applications: “we can configure our cooling towers to handle dirty water that’s contaminated with oil, or high concentrations of slag and dirty residue that comes off steel.” Elsewhere, we help deliver planned or emergency maintenance for the F&B sector, cooling water used in food-grade heat exchangers, or removing excess heat energy generated during the production process.

Reducing your environmental impact

One of the primary considerations for facility operators today is their environmental impact. Cooling can be a water-intensive process, and for those operating a ‘once-through’ water system, the local environment can be under threat. “If the water returned back to a lake or river is too warm it jeopardizes the health of the aquatic life in that area.” As a result, this type of operation is heavily regulated, and ensuring you have sufficient cooling capacity is essential.

To help lower the carbon footprint of your temperature control systems, Aggreko has developed highly efficient new technology as part of our commitment to Net-Zero. As Billy explains, “our new cooling towers can reduce energy consumption by as much as 90%. We can reduce the fan energy, using a DC motor that can run at really low speeds. That means we can put in larger cooling towers with less fan energy.”

Final thoughts

Any plant operator wants to keep things running for as many hours, days, weeks, and months in a year as possible. But with a backlog of repairs, surging demand, and COVID-19 losses to be recovered, it can be hard to find the financing, manpower, or time to do that crucial work.

Luckily, temporary utilities can be the stop-gap that gives you space to implement repairs and stop disasters before they happen, without needing to shut down your plant.

Find out more about our solutions for the manufacturing sector

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