Courtesy Super Radiator Coils.
Robert Benz (right), president of Benz Air Engineering, showed the upgrade equipment for Pearl to Ray
Birk (center), vice president of industrial sales, and Ken Kaye, sales and engineering manager, both with
Super Radiator Coils.
sive: an estimated savings of CAN$5 million per year in operating costs and
much lower emissions.
As Dennis Fotinos, Enwave president and chief executive officer, notes,
“District energy is a benefit in and of
itself to any community where you have
a district energy system; but if you can
take emissions down to negligible levels, as we are doing at Pearl Street, then
the benefits are even greater.”
Developing a Plan
Enwave officials were well aware of
plans for the new building long before the
deal was approved in 2007. Shortly thereafter, Enwave conducted an “impingement
study” for the area around Pearl and
determined steps needed to bring the
plant into compliance with recent environmental protection legislation before
the tower is occupied.
Taking effect in 2005, the new law
includes Regulation 419/05, which
establishes stricter emissions standards
for facilities producing nitrogen oxides
(NOx) from combustion. Those standards, which must be met by 2020,
include lowering nitrous oxide emissions
to 1.8 grams/second (g/s) and sulfur
dioxide (SO2) to 2.0 g/s.
Essentially Enwave’s plan was to
achieve early compliance and secure cer-
tification by Ontario’s Ministry of the
Environment to preempt any potential
complaints from hotel guests and resi-
dents. If such actions do occur in the
future, Enwave officials will have a
strong defense, because it already will
have been certified compliant with the
new emissions standards.
30 percent in the evaluation process.
Estimated costs, performance guarantees
and a proposed implementation time
frame were weighted at 20 percent each.
The final 10 percent was based on completeness of the application and qualifications of the submitting firm.
Of the 16 companies that submitted,
Benz Air Engineering (BAE) of Las Vegas
got the nod in June 2010. The project
required the firm to think outside the
box. “If we had followed industry stan-
dards for the first phase of this project,
it would never have been completed,”
says Robert Benz, president of BAE.
“Existing technology and aging industry
standards for boilers are still based on
high-ash, No. 6 diesel fuel, despite the
fact it is seldom used anymore in Canada
or the United States.”
Essentially, the project at Pearl
involved a custom-designed emissions
and efficiency upgrade that incorporated
BAE’s proprietary flue gas recirculation
process, selective catalytic reduction and
a combustion control system. These
components utilize adapted technologies
from the HVAC industry including high-
performance condensing heat exchang-
ers that were designed and manufac-
tured by Super Radiator Coils at its plant
in Phoenix, Ariz.
Critical Cooling Condensers
Within weeks after the project was
awarded, construction began at Pearl to
build a steel-mesh mezzanine floor
above the boilers. The new floor made it
easier to install, service and maintain the
large stainless steel housings, pipes and
controls on top of each boiler.
Constructed of low-carbon steel
and coated with refractory brick at the
front burner end and the back end, each
of the mammoth boilers stands 14 ft
tall, is 45 ft long and 12 ft wide, and
weighs approximately 130,000 lb. Built
in the 1960s, five of the boilers were
made by Inglis and feature a double
burner configuration; the remaining
three units have a single burner and
were manufactured around the same
time by Babcock & Wilcox.
All of the boilers are a watertube
design and have a capacity of 100,000
lb/hr of steam at 390 degrees F and
