Industries

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.

As you walk past the “sandblasting cabinet” back in the corner of the plant running alone and without the need for monitoring, does the thought of operational costs enter your mind? When it does, are you happy knowing the cabinet is automatic and does not need a full-time operator? Then, did you say to yourself, I wonder how much that abrasive media costs? How long does it last? Is this a more cost competitive alternative? Is there something that might last longer?

Compressed air is used in a number of processes in the food industry. It is used as an ingredient in whipped products such as ice cream, to slice or cut soft products and to open packages
before filling of product. Currently, food manufacturers are under pressure to validate the safety of all ingredients or processes for regulatory compliance, but unfortunately, there is currently no standard method to evaluate the microbial content of compressed air.

This paper mill currently spends \$1,747,000 annually on energy to operate the compressed air system at their plant located in the southwestern region of the U.S. The set of projects recommended, in this system assessment, could reduce these energy costs by \$369,000 or twenty-one percent (21%). Estimated costs for completing the projects total \$767,900, representing a simple payback of 25 months. More importantly, these projects will improve productivity, quality and maintenance costs - many associated with poor compressed air quality.

Based on the air system operating 8,760 hours per year, the group of projects recommended below could reduce these energy costs by an estimated \$170,718 or 56% of current use.  In addition, these projects will allow the plant to have a back-up compressor and help eliminate the rental expenditure for compressor maintenance or downtime.

Nutriom sets the bar high when it comes to producing its premium quality natural powdered egg products Ova Easy® and Egg Crystals®, that are sold at outdoor retailers such as REI, and online merchants such as Amazon.com; so, when the screw conveyor in their FSIS USDA facility required regular unexpected attention, Leonardo Etcheto, Plant Manager at the Lacey, WA facility knew it was time to look for a better solution.

This is a corn mill processing cornstarch, sugar, and other byproducts. Ambient air is contaminated with extremely high levels of dust due to the manufacturing processes and material handling. Average electric rates at the plant are \$0.04 / kWh. The actual plant electric cost for compressed air production is \$553,630 per year.

This food & beverage plant is a large (500,000 sq ft) meat processing plant with twenty packaging lines and nine palletizers. The compressed air system is supplied from three separate rooms with seven individual lubricant-cooled, single and two-stage rotary screw compressors. The plant has four blower purge desiccant dryers designed to deliver a - 40°F pressure dewpoint.

It was the Fall of 1997 in Germany. I was just another guy working in the German compressed air industry. East Germans were still being looked down on - seven years after unification, the Euro was launching in little over a year - forcing marketing managers like me to scramble and create unified european Euro pricing strategies, European Cohesion Funds were flowing out of Germany and into the Mediterranean (not literally), and the diminutive Mercedes “Smart Car” was the cool car for space-challenged urban dwellers. With this going on, you can imagine the surprise of the compressed air industry when compressed air was featured in “Der Spiegel”, a “Newsweek-like” weekly magazine in Germany with national distribution.

TIGG Corporation, a manufacturer of activated carbon adsorption vessels, custom air receivers and other steel tanks and pressure vessels, substantially reduced its energy costs after implementing equipment, labor consolidation and procedural changes resulting from a compressed air energy audit. The audit was performed at TIGG's 155,000 square feet manufacturing facility in Heber Springs, Arkansas to determine the efficiency of the existing compressed air system and to set a baseline for TIGG's participation in Entergy Arkansas’ Large C&I Custom Incentive Program.