At the 2023 American Boiler Manufacturers Association (ABMA) Manufacturers Conference in Oak Brook, Illinois, attendees learned about electrode boilers from Marc DuPuis vice president of Engineering and Product Management at Vapor Power International.

“Precision Boilers is an ASME certified facility that’s been around for 75 years,” DuPuis said after noting the technology is nothing new, just becoming more popular. “It's an established technology, it’s out there, it's proven and been around for a long time just at a sparser population density than what we’ve been seeing for the last couple years.”

DuPuis said electrode boilers have 99% efficiency, at a full range of loads, with 100 to 1 turn downs being achievable.

“You’ve got a lot more flexibility with a 100 to 1 turn down than if you're just limited to 10 to 1, four or five to one or 20 to 1, or whatever that case may be,” DuPuis said.

With space savings and low maintenance costs compared to traditional boilers, electrode boilers hold a significant advantage.

“I think a critical one is the failsafe with low water conditions. So with an electrode boiler, if you have a low water condition, you can't dry fire it, so you can't have a water-side explosion event. So it's an inherently safer design,” DuPuis concluded.