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Posted by Tony Conner on June 19, 2005 at 11:46:51:
In Reply to: Unforseen problems with converting to natural gas posted by Charlie on June 14, 2005 at 15:48:13:
If the retro-fit gas burner is properly selected & installed, you will have no problems, and I doubt that you'll see much change in efficiency one way or the other. I have worked in plants where the maximum boiler steam output would be different when firing bunker oil, or natural gas, but that was due to differences in the actual burner capacities. If you can make, say, 10,000 #/hr steam when firing oil, then there's no reason why you can't do the same firing gas, with no measuable impact on boiler efficiency, as long as it a proper installation. After that, the difference is what you're paying per BTU of fuel. Oil suffers a bit from needing to run pumps, usually requiring a little more fan power, and having to blow soot.
Do you currently have separate fuel meters for each boiler? Do you currently have properly & pressure compensated steam meters for each boiler? If not, then you really don't know what your boiler efficiency is now, let alone what might change with a fuel conversion.