Case study: compliance and savings in overheated water substations
Barriquand designed and supplied 140 PCV Platular® heat exchangers for the hot water distribution of Fontenay-Sous-Bois’ heating network. The project consisted in replacing existing tubular heat exchangers to ensure compliance with the PED.
Case study: compliance and savings in overheated water substations
Barriquand designed and supplied 140 PCV Platular® heat exchangers for the hot water distribution of Fontenay-Sous-Bois’ heating network. The project consisted in replacing existing tubular heat exchangers to ensure compliance with the PED. This project resulted in a 25 % reduction in the electric consumption necessary for the recirculation.
Requalification of heat exchangers in central heating
The “Régie de Chauffage Urbain” ( RCU – meaning State control over District heating) is the public institution in charge of managing the operation and the distribution of the whole of Fontenay-Sous-Bois’ city’s heating network, in the Val-de-Marne.
Our client’s installation consists of a big centralized boiler room equipped with:
4 wood-fired boilers
1 cogeneration station (energy recovery device which produces electricity and thermal energy from the boilers’ calories)
A 25 km long underground network of overheated water
106 distribution substations which feed heat to houses, companies and all of the city’s institutions (high schools, day-care…)Heat exchangers here are used to recover the overheated water’s calories and to redistribute low-pressure water for domestic heating.
The existing installation was comprised of tubular exchangers, for the greater part obsolete, that had to be re-qualified in agreement with the “Directive Equipement Sous Pression” ( DESP – meaning Pressure Equipment Directive).
PCV Platular®, robustness made in France
After a one year trial with one of our units, the tubulars were replaced by 140 vertical and thus less cumbersome PCV Platular® heat exchangers.
The PCV, which stems from the patented Barriquand technology and is made in France in our workshops in Roanne, is a model of Platular® welded plates heat exchanger, specially developed for the high-pressure district heating networks.
Very sturdy, the PCV heat exchanger is equipped with a specific system of doors which allows for quick interventions during operation visits every 30 months as imposed by the DESP. The secondary circuit which is entirely accessible is very easy to mechanically clean, which facilitates maintenance which is often outsourced to subcontracting companies.
Energy saving thermal performance
Installed in 2X2 passes, the PCV Platular® heat exchanger was conceived to obtain a temperature approach of 5 ° C between the secondary entrance and the primary exit.
Installed several years ago in Fontenay, they offer colder returns at the boiler level, with water returning at 75 °C instead of the 100 °C previously obtained with the tubulars, that is a 25 % saving on the flow-rate.
The electricity consumed in order to circulate the water throughout the network was therefore significantly reduced, which even allowed the permanent retirement of a recirculation pump, saving even more money.