Did you know a cooling tower with an average load of 1,000 tons can consume 20 million gallons of fresh water annually? Although cooling towers are the most efficient way to achieve cooling, they consume water by evaporation, blow down, and drift emissions.
Cooling tower evaporation is based on thermal load and is one of the largest sources of a building’s water consumption. Increasingly more companies and municipalities are looking to recycled water for their cooling towers. Recycled water can sometimes provide increased nutrients for bacteria such as Legionella and/or accelerated corrosion to all metallic components.
Blowdown is a function of bleeding some of the circulating water to the drain to manage total dissolved solids. The greater the total dissolved solids, the more potential there is for scaling, corrosion, and feeding bacteria. Because the cooling tower is typically the weakest link in the loop when it comes to being able to handle higher total dissolved solids, significant water is lost to the drain.
Drift emissions and windage are terms used to describe water lost from the cooling tower through the drift eliminators on top and the air inlet louvers on the side. Crossflow cooling towers typically lose the most water to drift emissions and windage while forced draft towers typically lose the least due to the greater distance from the fans to the drift eliminators and elimination of air inlet louvers.
Tower Tech turned the cooling tower industry upside down by creating a cooling tower that’s engineered to save water. This is because the design much more effectively deals with alternate water sources and increased cycles of concentration while eliminating windage and reducing drift emissions. Based on application size, this can result in millions of gallons of fresh water saved each year.
Tower Tech better handles increased nutrients in recycled water by eliminating algae and corrosion, keeping a higher water velocity in the basin, and allowing biocides to do their job more effectively. This coupled with the elimination of metallic components in the exhaust airstream provides much greater operational flexibility for using alternate water sources instead of evaporating increasingly scarce fresh water.
The variable flow, square pattern and clog resistant nozzles of the Tower Tech design help reduce scaling in the fill media. When combined with the non-corrosive construction and unique bacteria mitigating features, the cooling tower is no longer the weakest link in the loop when it comes to handling higher total dissolved solids. This often allows for a 25-50% increase in cycles of concentration, which translates into a significant reduction in water purchase and disposal expense.
The elimination of windage and 80-92% reduction in drift emissions further piles on the water savings found with the Tower Tech modular cooling tower. With water quickly becoming one the most valuable natural resources the only sustainable choice for a Cooling Tower is Tower Tech. Tower Tech is committed to Sustainable Efficiency through innovative solutions. Efficient products can make meaningful contributions to reducing the environmental impact. Tower Tech is leading the way through products that effectively bridge the gap between Sustainability and Energy Efficiency. Moving to sustainability and providing it efficiently makes sense in a resource constrained global economy
Tower Tech… a Smart Tower through Smart Cooling to a Smart World