Hippo Power at Tilbury

An extra-wide Hippowash Classic for RWE NPower

Hippowash was visited by RWE technical staff at the Hillhead exhibition in 2005 and was invited to propose a wheel wash system with water recycling for their site at Tilbury. Tilbury is one of three of RWE npower's coal fired power stations which co-fire a range of biomass materials to replace some of the coal burned.

They needed a wheel wash system that would minimise the environmental impact of material from their ash fields tracking around their site by mobile plant. Their competitive tendering processes identified three potential suppliers. Of particular importance was that the successful system would have a dual purpose; be configured to effectively clean the wheels of all commercial road-going vehicles and to be large enough to accommodate their CAT400E and Moxy 110 dumper trucks that solely operate within the confines of the site. The wash would have to perform within a heavy industrial environment where fine coal and ash deposits would prove challenging to remove from the vehicles' tyres.

As RWE’s environmental standards are so high on this busy site, it was important that the system could be in continuous on-going operation and therefore require minimal down time. The new system would replace the old spray wash that had been in operation for many years and had gradually become ineffective.

Hippowash proposed the supply of a modified 4m wide Hippowash Classic including the water water clarifier. In order to guarantee a powerful and effective spray through the extended pipework, the usual 22kW main wash pump was upgraded to 30kW. The ease of silt management afforded by the waste water clarifier ensured that the Hippowash could continue to operate with no downtime at all.

Hippowash successfully won the tender in April this year. A six week build programme ensued before the system was installed at the end of May. Peter Boston, RWE's Technical Manager said, The Hippowash has been excellent, really very, very good. The spray pattern is very efficient and very thorough. Hippowash delivered on time and the installation was very straight forward.