Getting the best out of steam systems

Paul Mayoh, industrial marketing manager at steam system specialist, Spirax Sarco, discusses new regulations governing boiler operations, and highlights some of the key steps that boiler operators can take to maximise system performance and efficiency and save energy, and, in the process, significantly reduce running costs.

Steam is an established, reliable, and efficient way of providing space heating and hot water in both the public and private healthcare sectors. Over the past 20 years, the evolution of steam generation and control technologies has produced safer, and more energyefficient, steam systems for today’s health estates managers. Arguably the most important change in recent years for boiler operation and management has come in the form of a new guidance document ‘Guidance on the Safe Operation of Boilers’, or BG01, introduced in October 2011 (HEJ – October 2011). Drafted by the Combustion Engineering Association (CEA), the Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed), and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), BG01 runs in parallel with the Health and Safety Executive’s ‘Safe management of industrial steam and hot water boilers’ (INDG436). The arrival of BG01 will be more significant than INDG436 for most people working day-to-day with boilers, because it gives very specific advice about how to achieve the aims laid out in the HSE document. It replaces the old PM5 and PSG2 guidance notes from the HSE and SAFed respectively. Rapidly evolving control technology was one of the big drivers for changing the guidance.

In with the new