Industrial Energy Savings    

Pressure

The “Dirty Thirty” – Discovering Pressure Differential at the Far End
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®
Much attention and expense is often directed towards optimizing compressor control, clean-up equipment, system pressure / flow control and main system piping in an attempt to maintain adequate and stable pressure at the end use. Often forgotten are the components of the distribution system between the main system header and the end use.
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Compressed Air Efficiency Opportunities in the Plastics Industry
By Dean E. Smith, iZ Systems for the Compressed Air Challenge®
As in most industrial categories, compressed air is critical to the operations of a plastics plant whether it is blow molding, injection molding, or other processes. The opportunities to improve supply side (compressor room) efficiency are similar to all industrial compressed air systems, but are even more prevalent in some plastics facilities, especially blow molding.
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A View From Canada. Tembec Sawmill and Pneu-Logic Stabilize Pressure
By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices®
Pneumatic air cylinders play a major role in allowing a modern sawmill to produce at the high-speed production rates required. Stable air pressure is critical to allow the air cylinders to respond in a timely manner and avoid any production delays.
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Saving Energy in Automotive Assembly
By Jim Timmersman
This automotive assembly facility has tremendous peaks and valleys in compressed air demand. Our audit using flow meters and pressure transducers with calibrated gauges has proven this. Our Phase 1 audit recommends the use of storage tanks and flow meters to reduce air consumption while stabilizing pressure.
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Advanced Air Leak Detection Services
By Ed Attanasio
“Instead of adding supply equipment, we fix air leaks and incorporate high-efficiency air nozzles, blower packages and point-of-use receivers.” These demand-side actions stabilize compressed air system pressure and this ultimately increases production output, reduces production down-time and spoilage costs, and decreases the power costs of the compressed air system.
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Roxane Laboratories’ System Assessment
By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA
Roxane Laboratories, Inc., a subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation located in Columbus, Ohio, created a world-class air system that generated $61,314 per year in electrical energy cost savings (1,156,868 kWh), improved productivity and quality, and allowed the successful completion of a significant plant expansion.
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Batch Transport Conveyor System Audit Saves Energy
By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA
A compressed air system assessment saved this building materials manufacturer over $518,000 per year in energy costs, with a simple ROI of 11 months. 
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Compressed Air Piping Distribution Systems
By Gary Wamsley, PE, CEM, JoGar Energy Services
Perhaps your facility recently had a compressed air system survey, conducted by an air systems services company, that resulted in a couple of major recommendations, such as:  • Install a new smaller compressor and new control systems on all of the units • Repair the many air leaks (identified as 30% of your system capacity)  
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Distribution Piping: Understanding Pressure Drop
By the Compressed Air Challenge®
The Compressed Air Challenge® (CAC) is a voluntary collaboration of industrial users; manufacturers, distributors and their associations; consultants; state research and development agencies; energy efficiency organizations; and utilities. This group has one purpose in mind - helping you enjoy the benefits of improved performance of your compressed air system. The mission of the Compressed Air Challenge (CAC) is to provide resources that educate industrial users about optimizing their compressed air systems.
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Printing Facility Reduces Air Demand
Ron Marshall, CET, CIM, Manitoba Hydro
This article will focus on a compressed air system assessment done at a printing facility in Canada. The energy costs at the time, in Manitoba, were $0.025 per kWh and the installation was of just 65 horsepower of air compressors.
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Plastic Injection Molder Saves Energy
By Gary Shafer, iZ Systems
The facility is a plastics injection blowmolder and is a division of a large corporation. The following information was produced from a compressed air system assessment done over seven days in 2008.
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