Industrial Utility Efficiency

Food

Maple Leaf Foods Saves with Compressed Air and Heat Recovery Upgrade

By Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

One existing air compressor was a rental and not fully integrated into our compressed air system. We upgraded the desiccant compressed air dryer to improve operational efficiency, reduce energy consumption and save on the combined cfm. We save close to 900,000 kWh of electricity, and about 704 cfm every weekday.

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Ultrasonic Leak Detectors Help Dairy Producer Optimize Compressed Air System

A modern dairy without compressed air is nowadays no longer imaginable, and it is used primarily for driving control units and machinery. Approximately 60 percent of the compressed air generated is used for packaging lines. However, compressed air is one of the most expensive energy sources in dairies. Even in carefully maintained compressed air systems, about 20 percent of the generated energy is lost through leaks. In particular, vacuum leakages in separators result in high energy losses. A small leak can cost up to several thousands of Euros a year.
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Using ISO 8573-1 to Test Compressed Air: Clearing the Confusion

By Ruby Ochoa, President, Trace Analytics, LLC

Compressed air is used in more than 70 percent of all manufacturing activities, ranging from highly critical applications that may impact product quality to general “shop” uses. When compressed air is used in the production of pharmaceuticals, food, beverages, medical devices, and other products, there seems to be confusion on what testing needs to be performed.
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CAPS Inc. Audit Turns Off 100 hp in Air Compressors

By Don Dyck, President, Compressed Air Performance Specialists

Compressed Air Performance Specialists (CAPS Inc.) is a compressed air consultancy located in Calgary, Alberta. In its most recent compressed air project, the company reduced a 200-hp, multi-compressor system down to a single, 100-hp variable speed drive (VSD) air compressor utilizing 75 hp of compressor energy (kWh), resulting in \$70,000 in annual energy savings.
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Five Demand-Side Projects at a Potato Chip Plant

By Hank van Ormer, Air Power USA

A major snack food manufacturer spends an estimated \$148,220 annually on energy to operate the compressed air system at its food processing plant located in the Mid-Atlantic area.  As electric rates rise from their current average of 8 cents per kWh, their annual expenditure will only increase.
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Assessing the Impact of Compressed Air Quality on Food Products

By Trace Analytics

Compressed air is a critical utility widely used throughout the food industry.  Being aware of the composition of compressed air used in your plant is key to avoiding product contamination.  Your task is to assess the activities and operations that can harm a product, the extent to which a product can be harmed, and how likely it is that product harm will occur. Assessing product contamination is a multi-step process in which you must identify the important risks, prioritize them for management, and take reasonable steps to remove or reduce the chance of harm to the product, and, in particular, serious harm to the consumer.
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Retrofitting a Compressor with a VFD and Master Controls

By Tim Dugan, P.E. President, Compression Engineering Corporation

As readers of this publication know, there are many ways to save energy in industrial compressed air systems. One common supply side technology is the variable frequency drive (VFD) of the compressor. It is well-documented that positive-displacement compressors with VFDs provide cost-effective savings in comparison to inlet modulating, load-unload, and variable displacement control.
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Formaldehyde Monitoring in the Poultry Industry

By Nancy Aulisa, ENMET

Formaldehyde is an organic compound that can adopt several different forms. It can be used in solution form as formalin, as a free gas, or in a solid form as paraformaldehyde prills. Formaldehyde is highly toxic to humans, regardless of the method of intake. At room temperature it is a colorless gas characterized by a pungent odor. Even with very short-term exposure, formaldehyde will cause irritation to the eyes including pain, redness, blurred vision followed by sneezing, soreness, coughing, shortness of breath, headaches and nausea. Exposure to elevated levels can lead to accumulation of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema).
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Nestlé Beats the Heat: Innovative Air-to-Water Heat Exchanger Recovers Heat from Air-Cooled Compressors

By Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

When the topic of discussion is making ice cream, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t heat, but at Nestlé’s Ice Cream factory in Tulare, California, heat is recovered from air-cooled air compressors to heat process water. “Right out of the gate, everything is pneumatic,” explains Tom Finn, Project Engineer with Nestlé Ice Cream Division. “Air cylinders and air driven motors, the process piping valves which divert, route, stop/start, and mix process fluids, our packaging machinery including rejection, cleaning and vapor removal processes, all of these rely on compressed air.
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Harris Equipment Helps Food Companies Attain SQF Certification

By Neal Lorenzi

SQF is a food safety management company that conducts audits and reports its findings on companies that voluntarily subscribe to its services. Once an audit is performed, SQF releases the data; from this data, other companies can determine who they want to use for packaging and manufacturing. To facilitate the process, SQF has released a guide that provides directives for processes used in manufacturing.
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Central Monitoring and Control for Multiple Air Compressors

By Don van Ormer, Air Power USA

This is a food processing plant where processes and standards are controlled by FDA to AIB standards. Annual plant electric costs for compressed air production, as operating today, are \$116,765 per year. If the electric costs of \$3,323 associated with operating ancillary equipment such as dryers are included, the total electric costs for operating the air system are \$120,088 per year. These estimates are based upon a blended electric rate of \$0.085/kWh.
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