On a large scale this can cause safety concerns, where these plume clouds can ground near equipment or on roads and foot paths creating wet and potentially icy surfaces. It can also obscure visibility which can be an issue on roads or around airports, or in some cases people just don’t like the look of it and associate these fluffy white clouds of pure evaporated water vapour, with pollution.
Whatever the reason, a greater degree of plume control can be achieved by installing air side dampers, which can vary the airflow into a cooling tower reducing plume formation or increasing performance.
Using manually operated rolling doors to vary the airflow into the cooling towers, it is possible to increase the plume abatement effect of the cooling towers seasonally, so that maximum plume abatement is achieved in the winter and maximum evaporative performance is achieved in the summer.
Installation of the system is simple requiring a couple of side channels and brackets to be fitted to the equipment, for the screens to attach to and where they will travel up and down the face of the equipment.
Each screen is designed to fit onto the equipment to completely cover the air inlet, providing a full protective screen which can be fitted with easily interchangeable winter protection, airside control or air inlet filtration screens.
This system can be scaled up and automated, varying the position of the air side dampers to maximise performance.
For plume abated cooling towers cold water temperatures can be reduced by more than 1ºC leading to increased generating capacity or improved plant performance in the summer months.
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