Stabilizing Cooling Tower Makeup at Data Tech Company

A Western U.S. data technology company uses multiple makeup water sources for redundancy and environmental sustainability. ChemTreat faced two main challenges with this type of variable makeup to a cooling tower:

Variable chemical makeup of the sources, outlined in the water analysis
Variable incoming water volume for each source

Goals

Maximize reclaim water use and minimize chemical usage without compromising heat exchange surfaces to help prevent downtime and minimize the plant power usage effectiveness (PUE). Other specific goals included:

Maintain the ability to subsidize reclaimed water with city water at all times.
Maintain cooling tower conductivity at a level that will not cause fouling but reduces cooling tower bleed.
Reduce cooling tower bleed to minimize water usage effectiveness (WUE).

Solution

To meet the customer’s needs, we used programmed non-proprietary water treatment equipment. Set points for reducing water use were safeguarded by select water treatment chemistry. The setup is outlined below and shown in the following schematic.

Water meters placed on all incoming and outgoing water to maintain proper mineral balances.
pH control with variable speed pumps to prevent scaling from high-hardness reclaimed water.
Controllers placed on each cooling tower system. Benefits include:

-Volume regulation of differing makeup water
-Chemical feed based on makeup flow rates
-Remote accessibility with alarming feature reports
-Versatile, non-proprietary technology