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“The pipes are protected by a special water- and heat-proof coating that is several centimeters thick and filled with rust-fighting polyurethane foam, said Viktor Tarasov, deputy chief engineer at Moscow Heating Network, or Teploseti. The pipes also are equipped with detectors that alert engineers about the need for small repairs before any major damage occurs.
 “All this means that the new pipes can remain in service for 25 to 30 years without any major repairs, thus allowing hot water to be kept on all the time, Tarasov said. “Just about every neighborhood takes its turn without hot water for three weeks every summer as engineers repair a vast and aging pipeline system that stretches for thousands of kilometers under -- and sometimes over -- the ground. "The problem is that Moscow's heating and hot-water supply systems have a level of technology dating back to somewhere in the 1930s," Tarasov said in a recent interview. “In most cases, city dwellers get their heating and hot water through a complicated system in which extra-hot water -- heated up to 130 degrees Celsius in the peak of the winter -- is pumped through the main pipes to the neighborhood heat-exchange points. There, through special heat-exchange equipment, household water is warmed up -- but not mixed with -- the water from the power plants and the cooled-off steam is returned to the plants. Some of the longest main pipes stretch 20 kilometers from the power plants to the neighborhood heat-exchange points, or nearly halfway across the city, Tarasov said.
So Fred had his answer, but the “Wallies” weren’t through yet. Cliff Heeney added this: “Dan, I live in Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia was formerly a part of the USSR, so I believe that the heating systems that we have here are probably basically the same system as in Russia today. We have district heating serving probably half the city, which has 435,000 people. As far as I know the boilers are all fired with oil and only make hot water, which is then piped into the district that that particular plant serves. There is a power-generating plant on the outskirts of the city, which of course utilizes steam to fire the generator. I believe that they then use the steam through a heat exchanger to make hot water for the district heating in that particular area of Tallinn.
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“This relatively unique heating and hot-water system was adopted primarily due to the city's vast size and the area's cold climate, Tarasov said. "And since electricity is produced anyway, the hot steam is effectively a byproduct that is a free source of heat," he said. "It would have been silly to waste it."| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
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