Flowmeters help recover lost revenues and promote energy efficiency

ABB Australia Pty Ltd
Friday, 25 February, 2011

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia, operates a steam plant for its huge downtown campus, generating steam for almost 60 buildings, including three hospitals, the governor’s mansion and a museum. Three identical boilers produce around 163,000 tonnes of steam a year.

During the 2006-07 financial year the plant generated almost 17,300 tonnes of steam but billed the various departments and building occupants for a little over 14,500 tonnes, a discrepancy of 16%.

Steam usage in each building was monitored by aging steam and condensate meters that were no longer suitable for the task. After assessing the various alternative meters on the market, a leading flow control specialist recommended the installation of ABB’s new swirl flowmeters.

Most of the university buildings are old and lack the long steam runs required by many kinds of flowmeters. ABB swirl flowmeters, on the other hand, allow for relatively short, straight sections of pipe before and after the metering location.

ABB Australia’s Measurement Products Manager, Trevor Maddison, said: “The swirl meters are part of ABB’s Â… range of flowmeters for liquids, gases and steam. They are highly accurate, have built-in temperature sensors, and automatically compute readings to indicate steam usage. These can either be taken manually or transmitted in real time to the site or building automation system.”

As a result of installing the new flowmeters, VCU has reduced annual steam losses in the generation plant from 16 to 5% and enabled the plant to recover more than US$1,275,000 a year in lost revenues.

To date, about 40 of the campus buildings have been equipped with the new ABB swirl flowmeters. With around 20 or so buildings yet to be fitted, the steam plant is expected to earn well in excess of the revenues recovered so far.

With university departments keen to minimise their utility costs and reduce their carbon footprint, being billed correctly has increased their awareness of the need for energy conservation.