Industrial Utility Efficiency

System Assessments

Thought Leaders on System Optimization Past & Future

Edited by Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

We asked a hand-selected list of original equipment manufacturers, independent compressed air system sales and service companies, manufacturing plants and independent system auditors to share their thoughts, highlighting the changes they’ve seen over the past 20 years, then predicting what the next 20 years will bring.

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Controls Upgrade in 10 Plants Saves $977,093 Annually in Energy Costs

By Stephen Parry, Bay Controls

To address a mandate for cutting operations energy usage at facilities by 25 percent without major capital expenditures, a major manufacturing company set its sights on better control of its compressed air systems.  The project, implemented at 10 manufacturing plants over the course of three years, saves the company \$977,093 annually in energy costs – and was completed with zero out-of-pocket costs.
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Assessment Reveals Air Compressor Control Gap Issues

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

A food processor in Western Canada hired an auditor to assess the energy efficiency of its compressed air system. The results revealed surprises about the operation of some important elements of the system, and detected that the air compressors were having control gap problems. Additionally, the audit led to initial energy savings of \$20,000 – and identified the potential to achieve overall operational savings of 45%. The following details some of the audit findings and results.
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Safety: Food-Compliant Pneumatics for Fully Aseptic Juice Filling Machine

By Aventics

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.
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University of Manitoba Bannatyne Medical Campus Saves 15% Annually in Energy Costs

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

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.  
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New Air Compressors Aren’t Always the Answer

By Paul Edwards, President, Compressed Air Consultants, Inc.

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.
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From Wastewater Agitation to Air Compressor Controls-Food Processor Finds 74% Savings Potential

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

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. 
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Compressor Controls

Egger Modernizes Its Compressed Air System for the ESG Era
Wood-based materials manufacturing plant transformed its compressed air system from an invisible
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Piping Storage

Sizing Compressed Air Piping to Manage Pressure, Flow and Velocity
Efficient compressed air distribution depends on proper piping design to balance flow, pressure and
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End Uses

Improve Process Efficiency and Reduce Energy Use with Compressed Air Monitoring
Without compressed air monitoring, up to 30% of the compressed air generated goes to waste. This
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Pressure

High-Altitude Mining and Steel Production in Peru
Before CAGI data sheets were created, air compressor distributors and their customers could only go
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Air Treatment/N2

Selecting the Appropriate Nitrogen Gas Purity Level for Your Application
Producing nitrogen locally is an excellent way to reduce nitrogen costs and ensure a continuous
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Leaks

Hyster-Yale Sustainability Recognized by North Carolina DEQ
Hyster-Yale’s Greenville, North Carolina, plant reduced compressed air waste through employee-driven
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Pneumatics

Food Safety Design Tips for Pneumatic Systems
Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) under FSMA CFR Title 21 117.40 is the cornerstone of
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Vacuum/Blowers

The Business Case for Air Compressor Rentals and Air-Over-the-Fence
There is no single right approach to putting the necessary volume and pressure of air in the pipe to
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