Combined Cycle Power Cleaning - Middle East
Project Overview
Precision Iceblast Corporation cleaned the finned tube bundles in two Nooter/Eriksen horizontal gas flow Heat Recovery Steam Generators located at a state-owned Power Plant in the Northern Emirates of the U.A.E. Precision Iceblast cleaned mineral deposits from two spiral finned heat transfer modules in each. The faces dimensions of the modules were approximately 13,500 mm x 5.996 mm. Access was gain from tube scaffolding supplied by the plant. Modules that were cleaned are shown below:
The plant was experiencing inefficiencies in their fleet of HRSGs. Having never cleaned before, they brought us in to clean one HRSG to determine if we could get the unit as clean as we promised. Once cleaning started our crew continued to blast during day shifts for eight consecutive days until the unit was cleaned. All the debris was collected and placed into drums supplied by the plant. It was estimated that about 12,000 pounds of debris was removed.
With a successful cleaning of the first unit, we were awarded the second unit to clean. There was a small delay to scaffold the second unit, but our crew remained in country while this took place. The second unit was the exact same scope of work on the same size Nooter/Eriksen unit. Similarly, we removed about 10,000 pounds of debris from this unit as well.
The plant observed major efficiency gains from the cleaning of both units. The plant was most concerned about megawatt gains as fuel savings isn’t as important to this region of the world as fuel prices generally stay low. More megawatts mean more money to the bottom line of the plant. Precision Iceblast was able to deliver a solid return for the plant and cleaning paid for itself within months.
APT Global, our Dubai based partner company, assisted in helping us secure visas, load and unload equipment, and dispose of all removed material. Resources included two high-pressure blasting guns (PIC 56XD’s), one high-pressure compressor, and four laborers (one supervisor, one hole watch, one laborer and two blasters) per shift.
