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case study

The Plant Couldn't Hit Full Capacity. The Answer Was Already in the Data.

 McMillen used Fathom to find the bottleneck costing Walnut Creek Energy Park megawatts—and modeled a fix that avoided costly pipe rerating entirely. 

WCEP couldn't reach full output without exceeding the 140°F temperature limit of its buried HDPE cooling water header. Rather than default to an expensive rerating, McMillen built a calibrated thermo-hydraulic Datacor Fathom model and evaluated eight enhancement scenarios in isolation. The biggest culprit: fouling had cut heat exchanger effectiveness by approximately 60%.

  • Pinpointed fouling as the root cause, with heat transfer coefficient reduced by approximately 60%
  • Modeled 8 enhancement scenarios with quantified impacts on header temperature and generating capacity
  • Identified a path to increased MW output without rerating or replacing the HDPE header
  • Delivered scenario-based results to directly support capital investment decisions

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