Industrial Utility Efficiency
Given that compressed air leak management programs are meant to save energy, reduce CO2 emissions, and generate ROI, DENSO’s Maryville, Tennessee, manufacturing facility can definitively say it has scored a trifecta when it comes to results – and reaped benefits beyond hard numbers alone.
Machines for filling milk or juice must often work around the clock. Given the critical importance of uptime, Elopak opted for Aventics food-compliant pneumatics when developing its E-PS120A - the first fully aseptic filling machine for gable top packaging. With an output of up to 12,000 cartons per hour, disruptions and downtime are not welcome with the aseptic filling machine.
The University of Manitoba Bannatyne Campus, Canada, upgraded its compressed air system to include variable speed drive (VSD) air compressors and the use of internal heat-of-compression (HOC) drying, replacing oil-free air compressors and refrigerated dryers that reached the end of useful life. In doing so, the campus reduced annual energy consumption by 15%, improved the quality of the compressed air to modern day instrument air standards and gained additional compressed-air capacity. The local utility also awarded the medical campus an incentive of \$13,500, offsetting the cost of the initiative.
Whenever we start a compressed-air energy survey there are always two key topics plant personnel feel are paramount – leaks and reducing pressure. In this installment of our series on missed demand-side opportunities we’ll address the importance of compressed air system pressure.
Replacing unreliable air compressors is often a smart choice. Sometimes there is a better one. Take the case of a wallboard plant with two compressed air systems, including one for its board mill and another for its rock mill. Each had two 100 horsepower air compressors, all of which constantly overheated. When they did, plant personnel had to scramble to turn on a machine manually every time a unit shut down. Three units ran the plant so any shutdown had them walking on pins and needles.
Air Operated Double Diaphragm (AODD) Pumps are popular and versatile. Often, they also offer an excellent opportunity to lower the demand for compressed air, especially given the latest advances in controls and the energy savings to be realized.
As many well know, system measurement is essential to ensuring a compressed air system is running efficiently and effectively, with good air quality and adequate pressure. This is also well understood by a multi-national food company (name has been withheld to protect the innocent) who started a focused effort to measure and improve their compressed air systems in their many processing plants worldwide.
Chicago Heights Steel, Chicago Heights, Ill., leveraged an advanced data monitoring system and adopted a demand-based compressor air management approach to save 2.5 million kWh and \$215,037 per year in energy costs. With an incentive of \$188, 714 from local utility ComEd, the project delivered a payback of 2.4 months.
As energy costs continue to rise it becomes increasingly important for industrial operations to reduce waste and inefficiencies wherever possible. It’s why an innovative company known as Lightapp has developed an intelligent resource management software platform to help manufacturers and other industrial users reduce energy consumption and save costs in the process.
In this ongoing column, we share insights into technologies that offer the opportunity to affordably and easily lower compressed air use and generate energy savings – all while achieving relatively quick payback. But finding these technologies on the production floor isn’t always easy or straightforward. In fact, there are many times when a technological solution is far less than obvious. Such is the case with cooling of control enclosures, which represent a significant area for high-energy savings with little upfront investment. Here is some out-of-the-box thinking… check that… inside-the-box thinking… for optimizing control of enclosure cooling and coming out ahead.
When the 18th Century Italian physicist Giovanni Venturi discovered when air is forced through a conical nozzle its velocity increases as the pressure decreases, neither he nor anyone could conceive it would ultimately spawn one of the most used and most highly controversial products in the industry today- the Venturi vacuum generator (aka, ejector).
