Industrial Utility Efficiency

Leaks

Hyster-Yale Sustainability Recognized by North Carolina DEQ

By Stephen Kelly, Senior EHS Manager, Hyster-Yale Materials Handling

Hyster-Yale’s Greenville, North Carolina, plant reduced compressed air waste through employee-driven leak detection and system optimization, achieving $177,000 in annual energy savings. The initiative also avoided 858 tons of CO2 emissions and earned the facility Environmental Steward recognition from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Read Full Story

Reducing Your Leak Rate Without Repairing Leaks

By Chris E. Beals, President of Air System Management, Inc.

As plant personnel know, repairing compressed air leaks can be an expensive, labor intensive and never-ending process. This article discusses ways plant personnel can reduce and maintain their leak rate at a lower level without repairing leaks. It discusses how pressure/flow controllers, variable speed and variable displacement compressors, automation, and addressing critical plant pressures allow plant personnel to lower the header pressure, which eliminates artificial demand and controls the leak rate. More importantly, the article brings a new dimension to the idea of turning off the air to idle equipment by focusing plant personnel’s attention on the idle time within the cycle of operating equipment.
[ Read Full Story ]

Vale Thompson Turbo Compressor Upgrades

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

Vale in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada has reconfigured a system of large turbo compressors in their mining, milling, smelting and refining operation and gained very large energy savings through a series of improvement projects. In addition, these projects qualified for some significant financial incentives from their local power utility.  Vale is a large multinational mining company with headquarters in Brazil.  Vale operations focus on the production of iron ore, coal, fertilizers, copper and nickel.  The Thompson Manitoba operations consist of mining, smelting, milling, and refining of Nickel in the 250 acre complex that employs 1,500 people.
[ Read Full Story ]

Choosing Durable “No-Air-Leak” Pneumatic Tubing Fittings

By Don van Ormer, Air Power USA

Over many years of reviewing industrial compressed air production machinery, of many types and styles, there is one common thread or complaint; “push-to-connect pneumatic tubing connections/fittings are a continual source of compressed air leaks and production interruptions.”  Probably seventy-five to eighty percent of push-to-connect type tubing fittings use flexible tubing selected for lower material cost and assembly rather than an alternate appropriate hard metallic tubing.  
[ Read Full Story ]

Load-Sharing Centrifugal Compressor Control Saves Energy

By James G. McAuley P.E.

This article reviews portions of an audit report commissioned to survey the condition of a compressed air system in a factory located in the U.S. The objective of this study is to determine the current operating conditions and make recommendations for improvement based upon application of industry recognized best practices. Due to article space limitations, this article will focus on portions of the over-all audit report provided to the factory.
[ Read Full Story ]

How to Become a Compressed Air Auditor

By Ron Marshall with Steve Briscoe for the Compressed Air Challenge®

How does one become a top notch compressed air auditor? There is very little in the way of formal schooling available to help interested persons become competent in the art of assessing compressed air systems or recommending improvement measures. As we will read in the following interview, having an excellent attitude a good aptitude, applying continuous learning techniques, using the Compressed Air Challenge’s excellent training seminars and materials, and seeking out mentorship opportunities have allowed one compressed air auditor to progress from a ”dumb kid” parts clerk to the Vice-President of Business Development for Industrial Air Centers.
[ Read Full Story ]

Compressed Air Training; It’s a Gold Mine!

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

Employees of New Gold’s New Afton Copper/Silver/Gold Mine, located just West of Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada have just completed an intensive round of Compressed Air Challenge and in-house compressed air efficiency training for their employees. The awareness raised by these seminars has already led to significant improvements to system efficiency. Further efforts initiated by Andrew Cooper, an Energy Specialist hired through special support from BC Hydro’s Power Smart program are set to gain even more power savings and improve their compressed air system reliability and stability.
[ Read Full Story ]

Food Industry Factory Saves $154,000 in Annual Energy Costs

By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA

This food industry factory, located in California, was spending \$386,533 annually on energy to operate their compressed air system. This system assessment detailed eleven (11) project areas where yearly energy savings totaling \$154,372 could be found with a investment of \$289,540. A local utility energy incentive, paying 9 cents/kWh, provided the factory with an incentive award of \$159,778. This reduced the investment to \$129,762 and provided a simple ROI of ten months on the project.
[ Read Full Story ]

Are Compressed Air Leaks Worth Fixing?

By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA

Why are compressed air leak programs often ignored or even discouraged by management, in addition to some energy recovery minded third parties? This problem can be summed up as “Over Promise” and “Lack of Delivery”. In the 1990’s, the basic compressed air inefficiency energy transfer became a prime target for energy reduction programs promising great results with many low investments. Good payback programs, which they are indeed.
[ Read Full Story ]

The Biggest & Worst: Tales from a Compressed Air System Auditor’s Personal Notebook

By Chris E. Beals, President of Air System Management, Inc.

Years ago, while managing the service department of my compressor distributorship, I received a call from a nearby customer who told me his 200hp compressor wouldn’t make any air. When I arrived at the plant I found the inlet air filter differential indicator showing “Red”, which indicates the filter element was dirty. When I pointed this out the maintenance manager said he had just changed the filter element; however, when I removed the element the compressor immediately started making air. He then admitted that the element was one that they had simply washed out approximately seven times before. Unwittingly, when he tried to save money by cleaning the filter element he was increasing his energy cost several times more than the cost of the element.
[ Read Full Story ]

Maintenance Saves Energy: Automatic Leak Detection on OEM Machines

By Jon Jensen, Energy Conservation Manager, SMC Corporation of America

Why So Many Air Leaks - Even Today?! Energy conservation has been much talked about lately, in the media, the government, and at the water cooler. Lean manufacturing is also a popular topic these days, as are any ways to increase productivity, reduce costs, and increase profitability.  
[ Read Full Story ]