Revision history [back]

A colleague has asked if it is practical to model an unusual scenario, and I am reaching out to you for creative insights. Here is some background: He is using a water treatment technology which removes mineral (and perhaps biological) contaminants from water. A practical use for this treatment technology is to treat cooling tower makeup water. A related use is to treat and reclaim cooling tower blowdown water. A benefit of this type of treatment is (supposedly) that the water evaporates much more quickly, ~170% of the normal rate, when it has been treated. If this is true, then cooling tower fan savings may also be a benefit. (i.e., more evaporation mean less air needs to be moved for cooling effect) In a power plant application, a lot of water is used for makeup. A 32MW plant may use ~400 gallons per minute of makeup water according to my colleague - a lot of water. If this water can be treated, evaporation made more effective and waste water reclaimed, savings could be great. This is especially true in areas like California where water and sewer charges are high. He would like to make a strong case for the economic benefits of the technology and part of that is to model the impact of increased evaporation. As it happens, I think I've modeled a cooling tower exactly one time and am not very intimate with the E+ cooling tower objects. For this water treatment concept, it is not evident to me how it would be possible to define a cooling tower to be more effective at evaporation. Do you have any ideas about that?

The other part of this problem is that a power generation installation is not a typical "building", so I'm not sure how to model one. My thought is to define a load for a cooling tower loop via EMS which mimics the power generation load pattern. Do you have any ideas about that?

So.... That was a lot to dump on you; thanks for reading this far (assuming you haven't dozed off). I'm not sure this is a viable modeling project, but if it seems possible to get reasonable results, it would be a nice challenge. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thank you!

A colleague has asked if it is practical to model an unusual scenario, and I am reaching out to you for creative insights. Here is some background: He is using a water treatment technology which removes mineral (and perhaps biological) contaminants from water. A practical use for this treatment technology is to treat cooling tower makeup water. A related use is to treat and reclaim cooling tower blowdown water. A benefit of this type of treatment is (supposedly) that the water evaporates much more quickly, ~170% of the normal rate, when it has been treated. If this is true, then cooling tower fan savings may also be a benefit. (i.e., more evaporation mean less air needs to be moved for cooling effect) In a power plant application, a lot of water is used for makeup. A 32MW plant may use ~400 gallons per minute of makeup water according to my colleague - a lot of water. If this water can be treated, evaporation made more effective and waste water reclaimed, savings could be great. This is especially true in areas like California where water and sewer charges are high. He would like to make a strong case for the economic benefits of the technology and part of that is to model the impact of increased evaporation. As it happens, I think I've modeled a cooling tower exactly one time and am not very intimate with the E+ cooling tower objects. For this water treatment concept, it is not evident to me how it would be possible to define a cooling tower to be more effective at evaporation. Do you have any ideas about that?

The other part of this problem is that a power generation installation is not a typical "building", so I'm not sure how to model one. My thought is to define a load for a cooling tower loop via EMS which mimics the power generation load pattern. Do you have any ideas about that?

So.... That was a lot to dump on you; thanks for reading this far (assuming you haven't dozed off). I'm not sure this is a viable modeling project, but if it seems possible to get reasonable results, it would be a nice challenge. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thank you!