Clamp-on sensors put through their capabilities for piped services
PA Energy, which specialises in the supply, installation and ongoing monitoring of turnkey sub-metering system, has used ultra-sonic, clamp-on flow- and heat-metering products from Micronics to good effect on a wide range of projects for saving water and/or energy. The projects have included rainwater harvesting, fuel-cell and solar-thermal installations on commercial buildings in the London area. Clamp-on meters avoid a whole range of installation issues associated with inline meters.
For the rainwater-harvesting projects, a claim for a reduction in the sewage charge is being developed by using a Micronics U3000 to demonstrate how much rainwater is being dumped to sewage by metering the amount of water being pumped into a grey-water tank in comparison to the boosted cooling water entering the tank.
Another application was measuring LTHW flow from a fuel-cell calorifier, again using a U3000, to demonstrate the performance of the fuel-cell process.
Another project involved monitoring heat from a solar-thermal installation by the flow rate of the water-glycol mix and its flow and return temperature to and from the buffer vessel to demonstrate that it was performing to specification.
Percy Albuquerque, managing director of PA, says, ‘Micronics clamp-on heat meters have proved to be an effective component in providing accurate water-flow and heat-measurement data for our web-based aM&T [automatic monitoring and targeting] and data-analysis services. The product performance has been good, even on partially filled pipes. On the rare occasions that we have had application problems, the Micronics support has been good.’
