be a delicate balance when both parties believe they are right!
“ The pumps were performing fine, but we were a little anxious at first”, added Phil Jones.“ Failure wasn’ t an option”.
Börger were totally professional – taking our concerns very seriously to get to the bottom of this mystery.
“ For us”, continued David Brown from Börger,“ we believed it was simply down to natural pulsation, but as well going to site, we also brought over our top engineers from Germany. It didn’ t help us or 2OC that due to the space limitations, the pipework for one pump was straight, whilst the other one was more complex, so had to cope with some pressure loss. Ultimately, we ran a test in Germany with 2OC in attendance to show that the pumps were performing fine. As it turned out, the vibration was down to nothing more than extra torque being required. Later, after another 500 hours running time, an inspection confirmed that there were no issues. It has been a bit of journey, but we always knew there was a reason, a solution.
2OC’ s Phil Jones added:“ Börger were totally professional – taking our concerns very seriously to get to the bottom of this mystery. Through the very positive dialogue between the two companies, it was also decided to change the pump’ s removable rotor tips from rubber to a fully stainless-steel solid rotor design because of the high temperatures. Together with the stainless-steel pump-head, it now means that there is almost zero maintenance required”.
Built by J. Murphy and Sons, Arjun’ s power plant sees 75GWh of the electricity sold to Thames Water for its Beckton sewerage processing plant( home to 64 Börger pumps), whilst the remaining 55GWh is purchased by Centrica.
Heat from the engine is supplied to the adjacent gas pressure reduction station owned by the Cadent( with whom Börger also has pumps in a very important application), largely replacing old gas boilers that used to pre-heat the gas – whilst heat recovery cycles of the CHiP technology increase the thermal efficiency of the Arjun plant.
Phil Jones from 2OC concluded:“ Our pursuit of getting this unique power station where it needs to be has not been easy, but very much in line with what government is promoting, we now have a very neat and efficient plant. This includes the Börger pumps, which are proving very efficient, reliable and easy to maintain thus far”.
For further information, please visit www. boerger. com / en / or call 01902 798977
Issue 74 PECM 117