Change steam tapping to save energy

Induction turbines are common in large plants. They use both high pressure (HP) and low pressure (LP) steam and exhaust into a surface condenser operating under vacuum. Induction turbines are especially useful since they use maximum available LP steam with a balanced amount of HP steam and thus, achieve the best overall thermodynamic efficiency. LP steam is generally available as flash steam for boiler blow down, exhausts from back pressure turbines, process waste-heat recovery, etc. Typically, an LP steam header is routed around the plant with several connections to receive and supply steam. Therefore, it is common to connect each steam user/supplier to the nearest point on the main header. The portion of the header where steam turbine exhausts are connected has superheated LP steam and the header portion which receives steam from waste heat recovery, boiler blow down, etc., has saturated LP steam. Some portion of the header has mixed steam. Thus, the temperature of LP steam in the header varies over its length.