Vero Beach Municipal Power Plant Revs With ISOPur Fluid Purification Technology

The Vero Beach Municipal Power Plant serves the City of Vero Beach with reliable power and is currently experiencing stronger energy demands due to the rapid growth of this Mid Coastal Florida community. Vero Beach is working with companies such as General Electric to increase available power and with ISOPur Fluid Technologies, an innovator in industrial fluid cleaning technology adopted by a number of Fortune 500 companies, to achieve several goals.

Vero Beach's goals are similar to those of municipalities across the U.S. and Canada -- include increasing the reliability and service life of its existing power generating equipment, reducing operating and maintenance costs, and avoiding forced power outages and production downtime.

To achieve these goals, Vero Beach is utilizing the ISOPur I-600 Series breakthrough oil purification system, designed for power generation and production equipment with flow-rates ranging from 600 to 1000 gallons per hour and tank sizes up to 5000 gallons. The I-600 features a patented technology known as Balanced Charge Agglomeration^TM (BCA), which is able to reach a level of oil purity that conventional mechanical filtration -- many of which are still using the more than half a century old "coffee filter method" of mechanical filtering --simply cannot achieve.

The I-600 is ideal for workhorse equipment that requires continuous uptime and high-precision operating conditions. It can be used in steam and gas turbines, compressors, hydraulic systems and other equipment that requires ultraclean hydraulic fluids, lubricating oils and fuel. The I-600 purifies fluid to cleaner than new condition, thus converting the oil into a cleansing fluid, preventing the buildup of sticky particles in mission-critical bearings and valves. The system's removal of varnish and sludge eliminates oil related causes of steam turbine failure, reducing production shutdowns and power outages.

ISOPur's BCA process uses carefully balanced electrical charges to separate contaminants from oils and fuels and actually "pulls" the small particles of dirt and contamination from inside the machinery, enabling equipment to operate more efficiently and reliably. All standard filters create a net static charge on particles in oil, which initiates the process of sludge and varnish formation. ISOPur's BCA technology restores a balanced charge, induces particles to bind together to create larger, filterable particles and blocks the attraction of particles to internal surfaces, thereby eliminating the fundamental cause of varnish formation.

A key factor in the life cycle of GE steam turbines is oil quality, as water and contaminating particles can lead to increased wear and higher maintenance costs. Management personnel from Vero Beach Municipal Power Plant initially learned about ISOPur's technology while attending an independent power plant maintenance conference.

At the conference, Vero Beach personnel heard testimonials from engineers at a major pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Groton, CT, which is significantly extending the life of GE steam turbines using ISOPur's fluid purification while also eliminating unscheduled maintenance and forced power outages.

At the pharmaceutical plant, a typical steam turbine was scheduled for a five-year inspection and rebuild cycle, requiring oil replacement and scraping of sludge and varnish from tank, lines and bearings. The resultant cleanup typically halted production for 10 to 14 days. Once ISOPur's BCA technology was adopted, maintenance and engineering personnel as well as their industrial insurance engineer, endorsed an extended inspection/rebuild interval – improving the interval from five years to eight years or longer.

"We were very impressed with ISOPur's ability to successfully extend the life of GE steam turbines and installed the ISOPur system on our three GE steam turbines in 1997," said Pete Lindberg, Director, Power Resources at Vero Beach Municipal Power Plant. "Since then, we have discovered a number of noticeable benefits gained by using the ISOPur system. For example, the bearings and shafts inside the turbines are lasting much longer and the oil reservoirs are a lot cleaner."

With ISOPur, municipalities and independent power producers no longer have to be concerned about oil related problems. BCA, by removing products of oxidation and particles as small as 0.1 microns, can purge internal deposits, rust and corrosion. By blocking varnish formation, BCA delivers longer maintenance cycles, reduced wear and lower operating and maintenance costs.

What's more, ISOPur's BCA technology saves on lubricant and oil disposal costs. "At Vero Beach, we have not had to change the oil in our turbines since 1997, when we first installed the ISOPur 600 Series. The savings in lubricant purchase and disposal costs have helped us stretch precious operations and maintenance dollars," said Mike Siefert, Power Plant Superintendent at Vero Beach.

Due to the pristine condition of the turbine's internal surfaces and the BCA process' total removal of pre-existing varnish and sludge, cleanup and flushing at time of scheduled inspection and rebuild can be accomplished in just one day prior to a scheduled inspection. That is equivalent to a 2000% reduction in maintenance downtime when compared to run time prior to implementing ISOPur, noted Siefert.

"By keeping turbines and other power generation and production equipment in peak shape, ISOPur's BCA technology allows power plant operators such as Vero Beach to sharply reduce scheduled and unscheduled equipment downtime; significantly reduce maintenance, repair and operating costs; extend the service life, reliability and availability of our steam turbines; and greatly reduce lube oil purchase costs," noted Lindberg.

"We're a small outfit and we run a tight budget like everybody else," noted Lindberg. "ISOPur has given us a huge boost in reducing our operating, maintenance and lube costs as well as extending the life and reliability of our steam turbines. I can't think of a system that has delivered a stronger return on investment than ISOPur."

"The bottom line is ISOPur has helped and continues to help Vero Beach to serve our growing community with reliable power while also allowing us to protect our environment by virtually eliminating the need to dispose of the oil in our turbines," said Lindberg.

The I-600 system transforms lubricating oil into a capital asset that can be used again and again without replacement rather than a commodity and a liability to be used and disposed of. "Lubricating oils are not only expensive to buy, they are expensive to dispose of," said Lindberg. "Because maintenance on multimillion-dollar turbines also doesn't come cheaply, using ISOPur systems to extend the life of lubricating oils and equipment makes absolute sense for power generation operators."