Green’s provides efficiency solution for Viridor’s energy recovery facility

Recycling and energy specialist Viridor’s ERF in Ardley treats 300,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste each year. It diverts at least 95% of Oxfordshire’s residual municipal waste away from landfill and generates enough electricity to power around 38,000 homes.

Impressed by the solutions that Green’s had provided for similar sites operated by MWH in Birmingham and London Energy’s plant in Enfield, Viridor’s Performance Improvement Manager Nick Tate asked Green’s to propose their ideas for making their final economiser more efficient and improve its longevity. Green’s solution was created using its engineering team’s analysis and modelling tools and the system design significantly reduces fouling which optimises performance leading to greater productivity and reliability.

To gain a thorough understanding of Viridor’s business Green’s team visited the company’s sites in Cardiff and Ardley. At Ardley they discovered that the existing cast iron economiser had become distorted and damaged the casing. To stop this happening in the future, Green’s recommended that the economiser tubes should be replaced by its proprietary single H finned stainless steel tubes and headers. This would give the performance required from handling the particularly corrosive and low temperature flue gas after it leaves the boiler.

Green’s also designed and supplied new soot blowers that would optimise online cleaning at the plant reducing downtime and increase efficiency.

Nick Tate says: “Seeing Green’s solutions in action at other plants gave us the confidence to ask them to help us make the improvements we needed at our plant. Their team have provided a full turnkey solution on time and on budget and worked 24/7 for 10 days to ensure the installation was completed to meet our timetable.”