The core competences built up in Explosion Power Ltd (EP) for more than 10 years consist of extensive experience in the industrial boiler cleaning sector in a wide range of applications such as waste to energy plants, power plants, waste heat boilers and process industry as well as extensive knowledge of waste incineration and power plant technology.
As a middle-sized Swiss company they develop, produce, sell, install and maintain worldwide Shock Pulse Generator (SPG) systems for continuous, automated online cleaning processes of heating surfaces in industrial applications.
In this cleaning process Shock Pulses are produced by a controlled pressurized gas combustion of combustible gas and air in the Shock Pulse Generator. The shock wave is introduced to the flue gas side of the boiler, spreads spatially and clears the entire interior of the boiler of deposits.
Easy Engineering: How was 2021 for your business, a short summary?
Explosion Power: The year 2021 was very successful for our company. The annual unit sales of our Shock Pulse Generator systems increased massively by more than 40 % compared to the previous year.
Following the launch of our new Shock Pulse Generator product line SPGr in autumn 2020, more than 60 generators of this new series were already sold last year and more than 25 of them were successfully commissioned. Since the company was founded in 2009, more than 900 Shock Pulse Generators are successfully in operation at over 200 plants worldwide.
In addition, the introduction of a new ERP system last year has decisively optimized internal procedures and processes and improved their quality. This has created the internal preconditions to be able to achieve and process significantly higher quantities and sales in the future.
E.E: What are the new products?
Explosion Power: Our continuous efforts to achieve a high degree of standardization have made it possible that the new SPGr-series now consists of only two product types, which nevertheless cover a bigger capacity range than the four preceding SPG types of the EG-/TwinL-series.
The optimized combustion conditions in the new SPGr series by using air instead of oxygen as the oxidation medium allow a massive extension of the maintenance intervals and lower total life cycle costs.
Plant operators confirmed significant prolongation of boiler operating periods and increased efficiency, thus contributing to a sustainable and economic plant operation.
E.E: What is the main customer benefit of the system?
Explosion Power: The continuous cleaning by the Shock Pulses effectively prevents a build-up of deposits on heating surfaces and tube bundles. The resulting improvement in heat transfer causes an increase in boiler efficiency and thus also enables higher system availability due to longer travel times.
Compared to other cleaning systems the shock wave is three dimensional and covers a wider area of the boiler. The shock wave does not cause any additional abrasion or other harm to the boiler tubes and therefore avoids the risk of boiler damage.
Based on our long-term experiences at various waste, biomass and coal fired power plants and other applications we can be sure that the fouling can be significantly reduced and critical areas can be kept in a reasonable clean condition during long operating periods.
“The frequent downtimes massively reduced our boiler operating times. This was an untenable situation and we had to come up with some solutions,” statement of the operator of the plant shown in the photos on the left and right.
In particular, the long service intervals achieved with the new SPGr product line significantly reduce maintenance costs. The service work can be carried out while the boiler is in operation. In addition, the continuous cleaning results in less cleaning effort during downtimes.
E.E: How did the market development change?
Explosion Power: During the difficult last two years worldwide, direct support for our distributors and their customers on site was largely impossible. Despite these restrictions, many of our existing partners were very successful.
To new markets in particular, the massive travel restrictions hindered access and this made it very difficult to acquire and quickly build up new distribution partners in potential market regions.
However, it is pleasing to note that our extensive experience in the field of boiler cleaning and our numerous references are giving us increasing access to new areas of application with very demanding cleaning requirements, such as for example Black Liquor Recovery boilers.
E.E: What were the best-selling products of 2021?
Explosion Power: Of the more than 150 Shock Pulse Generators sold last year, 40 % were already from the new SPGr product series. Measured against the recent market launch, this great success is due to the innovative technological leap of the new product series and the resulting potential in terms of product life and maintenance cost reduction.
As in previous years, the medium power range products were the most sold in both the EG-and SPGr product series.
Shock Pulse Generators SPGr and associated control cabinets
E.E: What sector of business do you think is expected to grow this year?
Explosion Power: In our main application areas of municipal-, industrial waste- and biomass plants, we expect further growth due to the excellent cleaning effect, the maintenance cost advantages, but above all also due to the extremely positive feedback from our customers on our new SPGr product line. The main sales channels of our existing distributors will contribute to this.
In addition, we will expand the original equipment business that we have built up over the last years. The expansion of this business is important for us, as it allows an additional increase in our international sales surface.
We also expect a revival of business development, especially in markets where access and personal support for our new market partners and their customers is once again possible on site after two years travel restriction.
E.E: What goals and estimations do you have for 2022?
Explosion Power: Due to our growth, it is necessary that we continue to expand our staff in practically all areas of the company by at least 10% to over 40 employees this year.
It is crucial to provide our distributors and their customers with the highest level of advice and consultation on the outstanding effectiveness of our cleaning technology and thus to expand our global market presence.
In addition, we want to establish new distributors in selected potential markets such as Spain and Poland.
By constantly expanding our marketing activities and tools, we are able to successfully draw attention to our core competence, the optimization of boiler operation through highly efficient boiler cleaning. We will continue to consistently pursue the expansion of this area through up-to-date expert presentations, reference reports, blogs, advertising and online marketing.
With all these efforts and measures we want to reach our main target of over 200 SPG/year.
With the SPGr series, Explosion Power is ideally positioned to solve demanding boiler cleaning tasks, even for very large boilers. Therefore, growth in existing and new markets is also expected in 2022.
Our longer-term goal is to move from being a niche supplier to a key player with our Shock Pulse Generators, the leading online boiler cleaning technology.
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