ERK boilers

Biomass is one of the oldest energy sources worldwide. These days it is also used to provide renewable process heat and electricity. The fuel spectrum is very versatile, ranging from simple materials, such as wood chips, to more complicated materials, such as empty fruit bunches.

Due to our hundreds of references, ERK knows exactly which combustion system and boiler type is ideally suited for a particular fuel or fuel mixture. We then design the boiler system to a particular fuel spectrum and application. 

Meanwhile, we are taking into account fuel and ash properties, fouling behaviour, process parameters, and site as well as transport conditions.

Good waste management practices are important to deal with the products each and every one of us produces every day. Ideally, waste materials can be reused, recycled or even upcycled, but a certain proportion of waste streams cannot be used anymore. 

Rather than landfilling these materials, it makes more sense to use them to provide process heat and/or electricity, which substitutes fossil fuels and eliminates health risks.

ERK has hundreds of installed waste-fired boilers. Based on this expertise, we can recommend the most appropriate combustion and boiler system.

Waste materials are complicated fuels. Therefore, specific issues, such as emissions, corrosion and fouling, need to be taken into careful consideration. ERK has patented boiler designs to deal with these situations, e.g. heating surfaces in parallel to flue gas flow.

The largest number of industrial boilers worldwide are oil and gas-fired. With increasing global concerns about carbon emissions, there is a move towards natural gas and higher boiler efficiencies.

ERK has thousands of oil and gas-fired boiler systems. These use both standard fuels like natural gas and also more complicated fuels, such as blast furnace gas. The use of multiple fuels simultaneously is also possible and increasingly common. 

From the very beginning, ERK has sought to continuously improve efficiencies and recently commissioned a 98% efficient boiler. Combustion air preheating and flue gas condensation are used to achieve such efficiency levels.

Coal used to be the backbone of industrial process heat and power generation. Today it is still a very important. However, considering the consensus of anthropogenic climate change its use has to decrease in the future.

ERK has designed coal-fired boiler systems for more than 70 years. We therefore have unique experience with the various coal types available. ERK is able to deal well with new challenges by combining decades of design expertise with innovation. Maximising the efficiency of coal-fired boilers is one aspect to lower its impact on the environment. 

Furthermore, ERK has just recently started encouraging the design of multi-fuel boilers that can co-fire other fuels.

Boiler plant operators need to be flexible in their fuel choices if they want to remain successful in today’s world of fluctuating fuel and carbon emission prices, electricity demand and environmental standards. 

In the future, carbon emissions will have to decrease and owners of new boiler plants are well advised to possibly switch to lower carbon emission fuels. Plants that can operate successfully on coal can simultaneously use local or seasonal biomass materials without the need for a boiler conversion.

ERK has a long history in multi-fuel boilers, with the first ones dating back to the 1950s. Today, we have more than one thousand multi-fuel boilers and heaters for mixtures of fossil fuels as well as fossil and renewable fuels.

Industrial energy efficiency is the lowest cost carbon abatement option. There are abundant opportunities for new and retrofit projects worldwide. It is a global trend, which started in countries with high energy prices, but is now spreading around the world.

ERK’s boilers cover a very wide spectrum of heat recovery systems, ranging from units using clean exhaust gases, such as from gas turbines and engines to complicated exhaust gases, such as from steel or cement plants. These clients include small industrial as well as utility HRSGs (heat recovery steam generators). 

To lower equipment costs our boiler systems can also receive exhaust gases from multiple heat sources.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are increasingly being built in the world’s sunbelt to provide utility-scale renewable electricity as well as industrial process heat. One key benefit of CSP is the availability of mature thermal energy storage, which enables power generation even when the sun does not shine. 

ERK applies its unique design expertise from other thermal systems to CSP equipment, thus maximising component performance, decreasing design risk, and shortening design times. 

In addition to ERK’s design competence, our extensive licensee network can provide these components to solar markets worldwide with a high local content and at the highest quality.

Geothermal power plants are well-established renewable energy systems providing baseload and dispatchable power in various countries. Depending on the geothermal resource and the application in use, the technology is suitable for process heat & utility-scale electricity. 

ERK is able to apply its unique design expertise with other thermal systems to geothermal equipment, thus maximising component performance, decreasing risk & shortening design times.

What is unique about ERK’s geothermal water heat exchangers is their low fouling and scaling tendency, achieved with ERK’s patented ERK Tube technology.

In addition to ERK’s design competence our extensive licensee network can provide these components to solar markets worldwide with a high local content and at the highest quality.

The increasing deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources, including photovoltaic and wind power in particular, gives rise to new challenges for the electricity grid. 

Electricity prices are frequently close to zero or negative, and more flexible electricity consumers are therefore needed to stabilise the grid. This is exactly where power-to-heat (P2H) systems can help, and simultaneously substitute the use of fossil fuels.

ERK has pending patents that are based on a combination of electric heating and the combustion of gaseous, liquid or solid fuels.

Being able to decouple power and heat production is increasingly relevant in markets where intermittent renewable energy sources, in particular photovoltaic and wind energy, provide a significant share to the electricity mix. Thermal energy storage (TES) systems can provide this.

The benefit of TES systems is their ability to operate the power plant or boiler system under optimal conditions. For example, a combined cycle can be used to maximise heat supply in times when electricity prices are low. District heating plants can shut down one of two boilers and avoid less efficient part-load operation. In addition, biomass and waste-to-energy plants can do away with the need for oil-fired auxiliary boilers during periods when heat demand exceeds the maximum boiler capacity.

Without marine transport modern global trade would be impossible. Also an increasing percentage of oil and gas production occurs offshore. Minimising the impact of these activities on the marine environment is important. It is ERK’s aim that our solutions contribute to this goal. 

ERK has a long track record in the marine industry, where we have installed hundreds of heat recovery boilers for engines and process equipment as well as directly fired boilers. Directly fired units include oil, gas and multi-fuel systems. 

In addition to water tube boilers, ERK designs compact fire-tube boilers, directly fired and heat recovery boilers. We also design heat exchangers using our proprietary ERK Tube technology. This technology induces turbulences, which increases heat transfer and reduces fouling.