Sootblower Solutions: Idea Nets Savings, Spawns New Company

Cramped and hot, Wade Keyes—with knicked knuckles and covered in grime—changes out yet another set of electrical cords or expandacords for one of Coyote power station's sootblowers. As an electrician at Otter Power's 410 MW, coal-fired plant in North Dakota, Keyes finds himself changing out cords every three to four years that should last about 15. Glad to be finished with this change out, Keyes thinks to himself, "There's got to be a better way."

A few years ago, Keyes—tired of the above scenario—came up with a better way, and the idea not only seems to be saving Coyote station time and money, but prompted Keyes to recently launch his own side business called Sootblower Solutions.

"I'm always looking for a better or easier and quicker way to do things," Keyes said. "And I just couldn't see myself crawling around above the gear rack and doing these sort of expandacord replacements as I neared retirement age. It just didn't make sense to do it the way we'd been doing it."

Typically, expandacords, which provide electricity to the sootblowers, are located in a corner above the gear rack and inside the blower. When sootblowers start up, valves open for about five to 10 seconds, exposing the cords to high-temperature steam. The cords also frequently get tangled as the blower moves in and out of the boiler. Eventually, this constant exposure and tangling causes cracking and premature failure.

At Coyote station, which uses 120 IK 525 Diamond Power sootblowers, electricians changed about 40 cords a year, which cost about $250 or more a pop including blower down time and labor. Then in 1992, Keyes used a self-designed retrofit kit to move the cords and attach them in a way that reduces their exposure and ensures a seamless operation.

Using a self-designed retrofit kit, Wade Keyes, electrician and founder of Sootblower Solutions, moves the electrical cords for Coyote Station's sootblowers from their original position, limiting exposure to steam, ensuring seamless operation and preventing premature failure.

Roger Sonstegard, Coyote's instrumentation and electrical supervisor, said those cords "look good as new," and Keyes' better way of doing things is now standard procedure as the old expandacords fail. Coyote station has used the kit to move the cords in 30 of its 120 IK sootblowers, with none of those new installations failing to date.

Although Sonstegard doesn't want to release exact cost savings figures until all of Coyote's expandacords are replaced using the new retrofit kit, he expects the numbers to be significant.

"I knew right away it was going to work," Sonstegard said. "By using Wade's method, we don't see any deterioration in the cords, so I think we can expect to triple the life of each cord and save some significant dollars in down time and labor."

Hoping to market the retrofit kit to other utilities, Keyes launched Sootblower Solutions late last year. The $100 kit comes with all the parts needed and step-by-step instructions to guide electricians at other plants through the relocation process.

For more information about the retrofit kit, contact Keyes at keyes@westriv.com or 701-873-2996.

By April C. Murelio
editor@poweronline.com