Filters Solve Fishy Problem

Marchwood Power Station in Southampton uses raw water taken from the River Test estuary as plant cooling water. It is also used on-site as general wash water, including for the removal of debris, such as seaweed, from the cooling water bandscreens.

When the Station was built, the water cooling line was fitted with a 1.6mm duplex filtration system. However, problems soon arose with blockages to the screen nozzles and the need for daily cleaning of filter baskets – caused by mussel lava and other organic matter entering the system. The spray sets and pipework to the screens were also corroded and blocked with the growing mussels.

A Bollfilter (UK) system was fitted with three 6.18.2 heavy duty automatic backflushing filters providing constant filtration to 500 microns, plus the original duplex filters as standby. Each automatic filter has a 3mm rubber lining and special profile filter elements with hydrodynamic backflush boost to further prevent build-up of organic matter.

James Brown, Marchwood Mechanical Engineer, who was responsible for designing the pipework for the new filtration system explains the advantages of the automatic filters. “When the site started operating, we soon realised the problems caused by inadequate filtration. Not only did the bandscreens and pipework require replacement due to corrosion in record time, staff had to regularly leave their duties to clear nozzle blockages and clean the manual filters. The Boll filters have been brilliant, significantly cutting downtime and maintenance on-site.”