The duck paralyses the boiler

Unexpected challenges are as much a part of plant engineering as wood is to a boiler. While technical glitches or weather are usually what you plan for, there are moments when reality proves more creative than any fault list – for example, when an entirely different “foreign object,” like a duck, ends up in the smoke gas fan. Decades of collaboration between HERZ and Clean Burn Bioenergi AB in Sweden demonstrate that even when things get truly “ducked up,” the partnership remains solid – and so does the heat supply.

Fly, Duck, Fly – Just not there

Since 2010, Clean Burn Bioenergi AB from Gothenburg, a Swedish provider of sustainable biomass systems, has been working closely with HERZ Energietechnik. For the Swedish industry, energy suppliers and even temporary heating projects, the company relies on one thing above all: Robust HERZ biomass boilers with outputs from 100 kW to 2.000 kW, offering flexible options for biomass handling and cascade technology.

One particularly exciting project is the Hamra Gård farm, DeLaval’s showcase for modern milking technology. There, two HERZ firematic 499 kW biomass boilers with distribution hoppers provide reliable heat – at least until an unexpected guest appeared in the smoke gas fan.

“The system showed unexplained symptoms like outrageous lambda values and performance drops. Multiple service visits, replacements of T-Control and lambda sensors were carried out to investigate the unusual issue. For a final check, I drove there myself, set the smoke gas fan to 100% and noticed when opening the combustion chamber that no air was being drawn in. That’s when we discovered the duck in the fan”, says Bosse Augustsson, Managing Director of Clean Burn Bioenergi AB. He hopes the ducks will take their flights elsewhere in the future. And even when a duck steals the show, in the end, everything runs smoothly – and, of course, stays warm.

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Picture: Life was claimed by the flue, poor duck...