Industrial Utility Efficiency

Cooling Systems

Brewing a More Sustainable Future at Tröegs

By Brooke Jones, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine 

Beer manufacturing creates three byproducts: heat, CO2 and alcohol. The CO2 vents back into the atmosphere, but soon Tröegs will be able to put it into a collection system and reuse it.

Read Full Story

Air Compressor-Chiller Combination Saves Glassware Manufacturer $9 Million Monthly

By Aggreko

A large manufacturer of consumer glassware products in the North East sought a solution for injecting cold compressed air into its refractory furnace. Doing so would minimize the internal corrosion thereby extending the life of the furnace lining and their annual maintenance interval. The manufacturer opted for a unique solution from Aggreko Engineering featuring a rental, oil-free rotary screw air compressor combined with a heat exchanger and chiller. Installed in 2019, the solution is expected to save the company \$9 million monthly given the ability to maintain extend furnace maintenance from one year to two years – and boost plant uptime.
[ Read Full Story ]

Reducing the Global Warming Potential of Refrigerated Compressed Air Dryers

By Roderick Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

Long gone are the days when cost and performance could be the only concern for companies manufacturing refrigerated compressed air dryers using refrigerant compressors. In 2019, accelerated governmental (Europe) regulations and a global concern for sustainability have brought new considerations to the table. What is the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of the refrigerants used in dryers and what is their environmental impact?
[ Read Full Story ]

Evaluating Air Compressor Cooling Systems

By Air Technology Group, Hitachi America.

As the population continues to grow in the United States, industrial water use will need to continue to fall to help offset the increases in public-supply water use. Water-cooled compressed air systems provide an opportunity for sustainability managers to reduce associated cooling water consumption and costs. If switching to air-cooled air compressors is not possible, understanding the costs and the alternative types of liquid cooling systems is important.
[ Read Full Story ]

Specifying an Air Compressor Cooling System

By Bruce Williams, Hydrothrift Corporation

There are several pieces of information that your cooling system specialist will need in order to properly engineer and build a cooling system for your new air compressor. There are many types of air compressors and each has different requirements of the cooling system in order to operate correctly. This article will take the mystery out of some of the terms and specifications for your cooling system.
[ Read Full Story ]

Chillers Provide Temperature Regulation For Fine Wine

By John Medeiros, MTA USA

Temperature control of the musts during the fermentation process is required for the production of high quality wines. Alcoholic fermentation is the chemical reaction in which yeast is used to transform the natural sugars of the fruit into alcohol. The heat generated by this exothermic reaction has to be managed. If must temperatures are allowed to reach the 85°F to 105°F range the reaction will be stopped. This results in high sugar content and an unstable product that requires the addition of sulphur dioxide (SO2) to allow it to be stored without spoiling. In general, optimal fermentation temperatures are 65°F - 68°F for white wines and 77°F for red wines.
[ Read Full Story ]

Chillers Save on Energy and Water Consumption

By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices®

Industrial plants are major consumers of water. Water is used in many processes. Sustainability projects focus on reducing the consumption of water and the energy-costs associated with cooling water so it may be effectively used.
[ Read Full Story ]

Savings at the Steel Mill

By Chuck Gerbe, Total Equipment Company

This major mill complex upgraded their compressed air system and thereby eliminated \$500,000 in annual rental compressor costs, reduced annual cooling-water costs by \$500,000, and reduced electrical energy costs by \$135,000 per year.
[ Read Full Story ]

Seven Sustainability Projects: Project Implementation

By Thomas Mort, CEM

This article reviews the 7th of the key elements for Low Cost – High Value energy savings.  Each of the previous articles reviewed types of projects which are applicable at many facilities.  The projects ranged from simple procedural actions such as turning off equipment when it is not making a product to more complex, like adding a water to air heat exchanger and extracting heat from the coolant loops to provide warmed make-up air.
[ Read Full Story ]

Heat-Reclaim Economics of Air and Water-Cooled Air Compressors

By Mike Wlodarski, HydroThrift Corporation

It is widely recognized that compressed air systems account for ten percent of all electricity and roughly sixteen percent of U.S. industrial motor system energy use. Seventy percent of all manufacturing facilities in the United States use compressed air to drive a variety of process equipment.
[ Read Full Story ]

Carbon Zero Air Compressors

Compressed Air Best Practices

Compressed Air Best Practices spoke with Peter Kyriacopoulos. Mr. Kyriacopoulos is the General Manager/VP USA Region East for Atlas Copco Compressors.
[ Read Full Story ]