Upgrade of the boiler station at South Johnstone Mill

The Australian sugar industry has been challenged by serious boiler incidents occurring at several factories that have cost factories several million dollars in boiler repair costs and lost production. The South Johnstone No. 2 boiler has had explosion incidents due to the build-up and subsequent ignition of combustible gases and/or dust clouds during start-up. This paper summarises the incident investigations, conclusions from the incident investigations and follow-on changes to the boiler station at South Johnstone Mill to minimise the risk of future incidents. These changes included standardising and automating the boiler start-up and purging procedures and upgrading boiler-protection systems. In addition to significantly reducing the risk of future incidents, these changes dramatically reduced low steam events, which has increased factory uptime, increased electricity export, increased boiler station efficiency and stabilised factory processing operations.