Posted by gburns on January 29, 2000 at 05:33:44:
In Reply to: O2 trim, worth it? posted by Jim M. on January 27, 2000 at 15:36:54:
I would say yes. I am a water tube boiler person but feel with PROPER TUNING you should be able to see significant savings. For example, if because of better O2 control you were able to average an O2 level of about 2.5% at high load this would be an efficiency increase of about 2.78%. Assuming your heat input to the steam from the boiler were 1000 btu/lb and the efficiency increased from 82.57% to 85.35%, and you were burning No. 2 oil with a btu value of about 19,500 btu/lb you could expect to see a savings in fuel of about 139 gallons per day. At $1.30 a gallon this would be a savings of over $65,000 dollors per year. If burning Natural gas you may be able to drive O2 a little lower for an even greater savings.
Efficiency numbers were obtained from CIBO's Energy Efficiency Handbook.