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30 NOVEMBER 2016 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com – petroleum-based, high-carbon, high- sulfur fuels to ULS fuels and to low-carbon renewable fuels." ADVANCED BURNER TECHNOLOGY Presentations on advanced burner technol- ogy included one by Andrew Babington, vice president and general manager of Babington Technology in Rocky Mount, N.C. A burner the company is developing, adapted from a unit used for field cook- ing by the military, weighs about 11.5 lbs. and features dual atomizers. "In essence, Babington makes a spray by turning the nozzle inside out," said the narrator of a video Babington showed to attendees of the NORA Workshop. A thin film of liquid fuel passes over the outside of the corrosion-resistant atomizing tips, and the resulting fine spray results in enhanced combustion, according to Babington. The air issuing from the atomizing tips is at a relatively low 15 psi, the company said. Excess fuel goes to a reservoir and is re-cir- culated. The burner works with B100 and a variety of other fuels, the company said. I n a n o t h e r p r e s e n t a t i o n , R o g e r Marran, chief executive officer of Energy Kinetics, Lebanon, N.J., told attendees that advanced venting enables non-condensing boilers to achieve efficiency and energy savings comparable to, or even better than, condensing gas technology. Direct venting or power venting are options for higher-efficiency non-con- densing equipment that doesn't have a high enough stack temperature to provide natural draft, Marran noted. But he called another method, dilution air venting, "The next generation in venting." Marran said dilution air venting works equally well for sidewall or chimney venting of high-effi- ciency appliances. He further noted that when equipment is operating at higher efficiency with lower temperatures, condensate can damage ter- racotta lining in a chimney, and stainless steel liner is not rated for that application either. For advanced, or dilution air vent- ing, polypropylene piping works well, he said. It has a working temperature rating of up to 248 F, he pointed out, and is designed for positive pressure, "so we can use it in a chimney or sidewall vent application where we have forced draft." Marran recalled a Brookhaven National Laboratory report of some years ago that found a low-mass, thermally "purge-able" boiler with an AFUE of 87.5% out-per- formed natural gas modulated condensing boilers with AFUE ratings of 95%. That result highlighted an opportunity for the oil-fired non-condensing boiler to achieve a still higher AFUE and compete more effec- tively with other fuels, provided venting challenges could be addressed, Marran said. "To get there we have to vent effec- tively, and that's where dilution air comes in as a really good solution," he said. Using outside air has proven effective, and is pref- erable to taking already warmed inside air for the purpose, he said. "Running a three-inch polypropylene flex vent down a chimney, even if it has some dog legs in it, is a lot easier than run- ning a five- or a six-inch stainless steel liner down," Marran added. Dilution venting can then be provided for non-condensing or condensing appli- ances, he pointed out. "So if you have a non-condensing appliance put in and twenty years from now somebody wants to put in a condensing boiler, the same vent- ing system is probably going to be rated for it and work fine too." With dilution air venting, Marran said, "you can run the boiler at lower tempera- tures for a higher AFUE rating. You don't have to worry about the issues with con- ventional venting—condensate or not enough draft." The ongoing reduction of sulfur con- tent in fuel oil has facilitated dilution air venting, Marran noted. "This technology came out at the right time because the fuel got cleaner which means the vent sys- tem stays a lot cleaner." And if cleaning is needed, the polypropylene piping can be taken apart, he noted. Another benefit of conventional boilers is that they use familiar components such as Beckett and Carlin burners, and Taco and Grundfos circulators that technicians are accustomed to servicing, Marran said. "Everything on the boiler is conventional equipment," he said. "You don't need the special components that come with con- densing boilers." The combination of all these factors allows Energy Kinetics 90+ Resolute conventional, non-condensing boiler to achieve 91% AFUE, plus an Energy Star "most efficient" rating, Marran said. At that, Marran called AFUE "only a piece of the efficiency picture," and not the most accurate indicator of efficiency or energy savings. "That's what the FSA is about," he said referring to the Fuel Savings Analysis calculator that has been developed by NORA. The Alliance recently released FSA 2.0, an updated version of the calcu- lator. For more information about FSA 2.0, visit the website NORAweb.org/FSA. l F O N (Editor's note: Slides from the pre- sentations at the NORA Technical Workshop, held Sept. 14 at the Viking Hotel in Newport, R.I., may be viewed at noraweb.org/workshop-2016.) NORA TECHNICAL WORKSHOP