About this industry
A generating station runs on measured flow and managed heat — steam and feedwater metered at boiler pressures, fuel oil held at pumpable viscosity ahead of the burners, turbine lube and EHC circuits watched for the first sign of trouble, and switchgear kept dry from the fuel yard to the switchyard. Prater Technical Partners supplies that instrument layer across the Badger Meter family (Preso, Vortex, Hedland, ModMAG, Dynasonics, Flo-tech, ATi GasSens), Aspeq electric heating (Indeeco, Heatrex, Accutherm), Fluke Process Instruments thermal monitoring, WIKA-ST pressure sensing, Reuland Electric motors, and SunWize remote solar power. Prater Technical works with you to spec each one from the line conditions, the fuel, and the outage window.
- Lube- & hydraulic-oil heating for cold-weather engine & genset start-up—Heatrex Circulation Heaters·Accutherm Circulation Heaters
- Fuel-oil & lube-oil reservoir heating for pumpable viscosity—Heatrex Screw-Plug·Accutherm Screw-Plug
- Turbine-fuel flow on generation & turbine-test service—Cox Exact CDL/CDX
- Steam metering in tight plant piping—Preso Gemini Cone
- Plant steam lines where a shutdown to install is acceptable—VN2000 Compact Insertion
- Plant water & fuel-liquid flow measurement—Blancett 1100
- Lube-oil & fuel-oil totalizing in stainless—IOG Stainless Oval Gear
- Stoker drives on boiler firing equipment—Reuland AC Wound Rotor
- Hydroelectric spillway & intake gate hoists—Reuland Gate-Lift Motors
- Qualified like-for-like replacement motors for commercial nuclear stations—Reuland Nuclear-Rated Motors
- High-temperature, high-pressure test-air heating—Indeeco Impedance Pipe Heating
- Shrink-fit assembly of wind-turbine components (custom builds)—CSZ T-Series Freezers
FAQ: instrumentation for power generation
Which meters handle boiler steam and feedwater at plant pressures?
Differential-pressure primaries carry the hard end of that duty — Preso Venturi tubes handle steam and feedwater to 1500 °F and 9000 psi with NIST wet-flow calibration available for custody-grade billing, and the Preso Ellipse averaging pitot covers large-line steam with variants for saturated and superheated service. Vortex VN2000 meters add mass-flow steam metering, including a hot-tap insertion version that installs on a live main through an isolation valve. See Preso and Vortex.
Can Prater Technical supply fuel-oil preheat for burners and gensets?
Yes — circulation heaters from Indeeco, Heatrex, and Accutherm bring No. 6 and other heavy fuel oils to atomizing viscosity ahead of the burner, with large-frame Accutherm builds for high-throughput trains, and screw-plug and flanged immersion heaters holding storage tanks and lube reservoirs at pumpable temperature. Most of it is engineered to order from your fluid, flow, and temperature rise — start at the electric heating page.
What do you offer for turbine lube-oil and EHC hydraulic circuits?
Hedland variable-area meters read lube-oil flow to turbine and generator bearings, a dedicated phosphate-ester series covers EHC control-fluid loops on generating units, and Flow-Alert switches add low-flow alarms and pump-protection interlocks. For turbine-control hydraulics, Flo-tech turbine sensors monitor permanently plumbed circuits and the MC4000 handheld analyzer troubleshoots them. See Hedland and Flo-tech.
How do you keep switchgear dry and catch electrical hot spots early?
Indeeco and Heatrex enclosure heaters hold switchgear, motor-control centers, and outdoor utility cabinets above the dew point through wide ambient swings, and the ThermoView TV30 fixed thermal imager watches electrical gear and other critical assets continuously with alarm outputs for predictive maintenance. See the electric heating page and Fluke Process Instruments.
What is iHeat HRSG heat trace and where does it fit?
iHeat HRSG is Indeeco's impedance-based heat-trace system for heat-recovery steam generators and cogen plants — it keeps steam-drum sample lines and chemical-feed lines from freezing by heating the tubing itself, a flagship Indeeco application. Indeeco also builds conventional heat trace for balance-of-plant piping. Start at Indeeco.
Working a boiler upgrade, a steam-metering spec, or an outage-window retrofit? Talk to Scott — send directly to Scott Prater at scott@pratertechnical.com, or call him directly at 917-580-0878 during business hours.
Compiled by Prater Technical Partners.