Steam storage (Enhanced Accumulator)
Steam accumulators are used where steam demand is erratic causing either operational or performance issues, such has starving other steam users, erratic boiler firing, or energy wastage through continuous-load waste heat boilers.

Traditionally an accumulator holds steam at the higher boiler pressure, whereas steam is used at lower pressures. The storage capacity is a factor of the difference between boiler and user pressures and often this difference is small causing the accumulators to be very large, located at the boiler and sub-optimal due to their limited storage capacity.

Nthalpy’s solution is to boost the steam pressure at the inlet to the accumulator to typically 1.7 times that of the boiler pressure. We call this solution our “ENHANCED ACCUMULATOR”. This large pressure differential allows smaller accumulators to be installed and also located where the user and boiler pressures are the same. Through the compressor, the accumulator charging rate can be controlled to ensure that the accumulator is not causing additional boilers to run unnecessarily.

Waste-heat boiler systems that provide steady steam generation can utilise our enhanced accumulator solution to ensure a variable load, characterised by peaks and troughs, can achieve 100% energy recovery from the waste heat boiler system. A further benefit of our enhanced accumulator is that the superheated steam exiting the compressor can be controlled to ensure there are no condensation losses within the accumulator.

Steam Boosting and Compressors
Some industries have a need to boost steam pressure, either as a requirement of the process for higher pressures, or to increase the steam’s saturated temperature and enable processes to be heated above the saturation temperature of the steam available to site.

Nthalpy can boost the pressure of steam at any flowrate at a ratio of 1.4 for a single stage machine, through to 1.7 for a two-stage machine.Machines can also be placed in series for higher pressure boosting ratios.

Compressor power is a factor of flow and required pressure ratio. Typical figures are 4kW electrical power per 100kW thermal-boosted power for a single stage machine, and 8kW electrical power per 100kW thermal-boosted power for a 2-stage machine. Due to the unique design and robustness of the TurboClaw® compressor, there are no specific quality and condition requirements for the incoming steam and the compressor can tolerate steam vapours at various wetness fractions.

Steam exiting the compressor will be slightly superheated, however Nthalpy can fit a de-superheater if required to ensure the exiting steam’s condition is matched to the process requirements.