Heat Trace Upgrade Project
Up to 2010 a power plant in New Mexico was working with a heat trace system that was delivering a varied performance around its huge facility. Composed of components from several different manufacturers, the systems had been patched up and added to over the years. This resulted in different control systems being in use and a setup that was not very operator-friendly.
Despite these challenges, the facility did its best to ensure that failures and issues were found and resolved to avoid temperature-related pipeline trouble, crucial for maintaining uninterrupted service to the wide public area it serves. Maintaining the heat trace system required operators to understand all the different systems in use. In some areas, they needed to regularly manually check that circuits were online and functioning.
It reached a point where the management team of this facility recognized they needed to overhaul the entire 30 miles of their heat trace system. To do that, they needed a reliable long-term partner they could trust.
Our Solution
When Chromalox came on board, we reviewed the situation and facility needs. We recommended a phased approach to ensure a smooth transition to new systems with minimal interruption to heat trace output.
Our engineering team always focuses on efficiency and best-fit solutions for our customers' unique requirements. We carefully understood the needs of the different areas in this facility and specified components and solutions accordingly.
For the most part, this site has now moved over to our best-in-class solutions, designed and manufactured by our expert engineers. This includes self-regulating hazardous area cable, and mineral insulated cable for some locations, with a few remaining areas left to upgrade as we near the completion of the initial upgrade and move forward into general maintenance.
The facility is now able to easily monitor and manage its heat trace system thanks to the communication and monitoring features of our controls, ensuring operators have visibility of the health of all circuits remotely.
Overall, the customer now has a heat trace solution that saves them time, delivers efficiency and ensures peace of mind from a system they can rely on.
Products include:
+ Heat Tracing Line Sensing Control Panel 2-48 Loops
+ Heat Tracing Ambient Sensing Control Panel
+ Self-Regulating Heat Trace
+ Hazardous Area Heat Trace
+ Mineral Insulated Heat Trace
Features of our solutions:
+ Soft start feature to mitigate in-rush current nuisance tripping
+ Current monitoring
+ Proportional temperature control
+ Full communications and monitoring
+ Hi / lo temp monitoring and alarm output
+ GFI alarm output
+ Self-regulating heat trace cable
+ LED lighted end seals to assure the operators of the system’s integrity
As we near the completion of the initial upgrade, we’ll continue to support our customer with maintenance and management of their heat trace system, providing advice and guidance and liaising with their installation partner.
