Your Fast Track to CO₂ Reduction
Improving Sustainability Through Increased Efficiency
Your steam trap population is a vital part of the overall production system. If one, or more, fails then your plant will experience a drop in its capacity, and potentially it might even come to a standstill.
Your steam trap population is a vital part of the overall production system. If one, or more, fails then your plant will experience a drop in its capacity, and potentially it might even come to a standstill.
They are also essential to the quality of your output. In a complex steam and condensate system, blocked steam traps will undoubtedly lead to the rejection of products because the system can no longer perform at a suitable level.
There are, of course, costs involved in the production of steam too. Water, and its treatment, plus the fuel needed to create steam add up to significant running costs. Where steam traps are not immediately obvious in a system, often the case in a pipeline bridge, the energy loss could be considerable. Coupled with the drive for increased sustainability, and the environmental and regulatory demands to reduce CO₂, you can see why needlessly losing steam due to faulty steam traps doesn't make sense.
You might think a few faulty steam traps are a minor inconvenience. But if you consider that if just five traps fail in the steam drainage line, that would result in 100 tons of live steam escaping and 20 tons of CO₂ needlessly being discharged in a single year. Just in terms of steam generation, that’s a loss that will cost thousands and one that will only increase over time if not remedied.
How much CO2 do faulty steam traps emit?
In this table the potential impact, both on efficiency and sustainability targets, is calculated:
| Faulty steam traps | Loss per annum | Yearly CO2 emissions |
| 1 | 720 EUR | 3,840 kg |
| 10 | 7,200 EUR | 38,400 kg |
| 20 | 14,400 EUR | 76,800 kg |
| 50 | 36,000 EUR | 192,000 kg |
| 200 | 144,000 EUR | 768,000 kg |
Cost of steam generation: 30 euros per ton; operating hours 8,000 p.a; loss of steam per steam trap: 3kg/hour
It's important to note that these figures do not consider the potential damage being caused to your system by trapped condensate and steam travelling around at high velocity (a two-phase mixture). That deterioration of lines can significantly reduce the working life of a plant.
Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to make sure your operations are running as efficiently as possible.
A steam trap survey may already be part of your routine, ideally happening annually. However, if your plant is always operating at 80% efficiency, that to you has become your new "100%", since you're not detecting where optimisation might be possible.
GESTRA's advanced VKP 42 ultrasonic tester for steam traps and condensate systems removes the guesswork from analysing your system's performance.
With the automatic calculation of CO₂ emissions, a database suitable for over 20,000 test objects, and integration with a powerful software suite, the VKP 42 is at the vanguard of steam science.
But whilst it's easy to use, there is no substitute for knowledge and experience when it comes to correctly interpret the data.
GESTRA's engineers have experience in helping companies improve their sustainability, save energy and increase system reliability from those with a single steam trap right up to those with thousands.
In the push towards greater efficiency and heightened sustainability values, you will have no better ally.