A New Non-Invasive Air-Cooled Condenser Monitoring Methodology to Increase Performance

Air-Cooled Condenser performance can significantly affect WTE plants bottom-line. Most of the possible ACC performance improvement solutions require some important capital costs (fin tubes replacement, fans blades or motor upgrade, additional ACC cells, addition of preventive air re-circulation panels, etc…). A new low cost tool and methodology is now allowing to gain a very detailed understanding of ACC behaviours and to optimize ACC operations and cleaning schedules. This article is illustrated by the case-study of a WTE located in the south of France (equipped with a 5.5 MW GE condensing turbine), where the facility performance was strongly limited by its ACC, and where additional turbine generator output of more than 1 MW were achieved.