Power Plant Retrofits Cooling Water System With McCrometer FPI Mag® (Full Profile Insertion) Flow Meter

By Jennifer Kerckhoff, Vertical Marketing Manager, McCrometer, Inc.

A large power generation plant on a coastal bay site in the United States needed to convert its cooling tower water system to a closed-loop design. The newly retrofitted closed-loop system is more efficient and reduces the thermal impact on the bay.

The Problem
The owner of the plant invested several hundred million dollars in retrofit equipment to minimize the amount of cooling water drawn from the bay. The plant’s process and consulting engineers designed a closed-loop system which retrofits the piping already in place.

In the new design, the engineering team identified the need for liquid flow meter placement at multiple locations to measure the flow of water as it passed through the system. Accurate liquid flow measurement is necessary not only for operational purposes to support the cooling towers but also to determine the system influence on the bay’s marine life.

The design team needed to find a flow measurement technology that provides accurate and dependable measurement in medium to large line sizes, which also could be installed easily within the existing piping layout. In addition, the flow meter needed to be constructed of rugged materials resistant to seawater, which is highly corrosive over time.