Technology

This building products factory spent an estimated \$240,000 annually on energy to operate the compressed air system at their Midwestern facility. This figure will increase as electric rates rise from their current average of 7.8 cents per kWh. The set of projects recommended, by the system assessment, reduced these energy costs by an estimated \$104,336 or 43% of current use. Project costs totalled \$73,000, representing a simple payback period of 8 months.

Air Demand Increase of 43% Results in Only a 5% Energy Cost Increase

Compressed air is an expensive medium; yet, many compressed air systems are wastefully managed with minimal system transparency. Capturing essential system performance data and monitoring critical air quality data is not only eye opening, it enables future investments in compressed air systems to be fact-based and traceable.

“I don’t understand. I attended the Compressed Air Challenge® Fundamentals and Advanced courses. I read every article and book I could find on improving the efficiency of compressed air systems. I developed great ideas about how to reduce my compressed air consumption. We fixed leaks, “right-sized” filters to reduce pressure drop, changed piping, moved some processes to shifts that used less compressed air, bought low consumption nozzles and educated our entire workforce. We did all of this work and I still have six out of six compressors running. Reducing my air consumption does not appear to have reduced my air production!”

The Trinity Mirror Group print works on Oldham is one of the UK’s largest newspaper printers. The nine presses in the facility produce around 1million papers every day, including the Independent, the Daily Mirror and a range of local, regional and sports titles. Printing on this scale does not come cheap in energy terms, however. The plant’s annual electricity bill is in the order of £1.5millon. With energy prices on the rise, and a strong desire to improve environmental performance and reduce its carbon footprint, the plant’s management has recently embarked on a project to cut energy use substantially.

It has been my experience that more than 50% of industrial air users don’t control their air compressor resources effectively. As a result, a tremendous amount of energy is wasted. When my firm does audits of plant energy consumption, it’s not unusual for us to encounter installations with large numbers of independently-controlled compressors that are all running at different pressure settings and different loads.

Back when gasoline was 35 cents a gallon, the term “environmental technology” was not well known. Engineers did not often promote the benefits of building low-energy consumption pneumatic valves among their peers. Recycling or conservation of resources was seldom discussed with any seriousness. In reality, the conversation was more likely to have turned to the muscle cars of the day and how much horsepower they would generate.

A large custom leather furniture manufacturer switches from rotary screw vacuum pumps to blowers for CNC router table hold down, and saves big on electricity, maintenance expenses and floor space.

Condensate drains are possibly the least glamorous and most ignored component of a compressed air system but nevertheless, a most important part. No matter how much you spend on that fancy new compressed air system, VFD’S pin-stripes and flashing lights notwithstanding, not spending a little effort with your drain choice could cause you no end of headaches and increased operating costs for years to come.

Contaminants can enter a system at the compressor intake or be introduced into the airstream by the system itself. Lubricant, metal particles, rust, and pipe scale are all separated and filtered out, but it’s the drains that have to operate properly for the filters and separators to be successful in completing their task.

In the 1970s, the use of filtration in air quality management in pharmaceutical production, hospitals, and medical device manufacturing facilities became increasingly important and increasingly of interest to regulatory agencies. The air quality field was growing. From the air moving into and out of clean rooms to the protection of surgical environments to the expansion of the global medical drug industry, compressed air began to play a larger role—a role that continues undiminished (and, in fact, has increased substantially) today.

A plastics molding plant had engaged us to conduct an ‘on-site’ Energy Assessment of their facility. The annual ‘spend’ for electricity, natural gas, and water was about \$3.2 million for this modern 275,000 square foot, fully air-conditioned facility. During the Review, several opportunities were identified and delineated in lighting, HVAC, process ventilation, the water systems and energy supply contracts. However, the most significant savings were in their compressed air system.