Industrial Utility Efficiency

End Uses

Improve Process Efficiency and Reduce Energy Use with Compressed Air Monitoring

By Hendrik Priemer, Product Manager IIoT Applications, Machine Automation, Emerson 

Without compressed air monitoring, up to 30% of the compressed air generated goes to waste. This waste occurs for several reasons, including leaks caused by failures at joints and tubes, exposure to vibration and normal component wear, and the suboptimization of machines and devices. Continuous monitoring capabilities allow operators to detect leaks and other anomalies in their early stages. By addressing pneumatic issues before they can grow, companies can reduce compressed air use by 20% to 30%. 
 

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Control Panel Cooling Change Saves Compressed Air Electrical Costs

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

As a result of compressed air awareness training and a focus on energy management, two facilities in different parts of the world have reduced their compressed air demand substantially by removing vortex style cabinet coolers from some of their electrical panels and reworking the cooling systems.  These facilities were previously unaware of the high cost of compressed air and how much could be saved if other methods of cooling were used. This article describes some of their efforts in demand reduction.
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Lantech Case Erectors Engineered for Compressed Air Efficiency

By Mike Castelli, Director Global Business Development, Case Handling Products, Lantech

Energy, in all forms, has always been a key Lantech focus. It was, in fact, a key element of the core packaging problem the company’s founders set out to address. They saw an opportunity to capitalize on an inexpensive and under-used resource – stretch film – to displace a high materials cost and energy intensive way of unitizing pallet loads of products – shrink bagging.
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Systems Approach Cuts Fabric Mill Energy Costs

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

A large fabric mill has implemented an energy management system based on the ISO 50001 standard to track their compressed air system efficiency.  As a result of information gained from this system, and measures learned in some recent compressed air training, the company has reduced their compressed air system costs while at the same time achieving increased fabric production output. The savings were gained by not only optimizing the supply side of the system, but by also addressing the end uses.
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Don’t Skip the Most Important Meeting of Your Energy Project

By John Molnar, Rogers Machinery Company

In many parts of the country—and especially the Pacific Northwest—interest has surged in completing energy-saving compressed air system upgrades. The financial assistance from incentive programs, combined with the falling costs of efficiency-increasing technology, has made these projects very attractive to all those involved. The benefits for society, power companies and customers are immense.
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Cooking Oil Factory Combines Compressed Air Systems to Save 36%

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

To produce healthy, high-quality cooking oil, this food processing company crushes and processes oil seeds shipped in from local farms. The oil produced is thought to be the healthiest cooking oil available, because it is low in saturated fat, high in monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA), and polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), like omega-3 fatty acids. To increase the energy efficiency of its oil seed crushing and processing facility, the company optimized its compressed air system by combining three separate systems into one. Some end-use optimization was done to correct low pressure, particularly caused by some critical high-flow, short-duration events.
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Innovative Blow Molds Reduce Compressed Air Pressure in PET Blow Molding

By Vincent Duvernois, Partner – SKV Services, Stephane Larcade, President – SKV Services, and Jean Pilnard, Export Manager – COMEP

Technological trends in plastics manufacturing are driving the costs of production down. In industrial PET blow molding specifically, two innovative techniques have had major impacts over the last 15 years: “light weighting” the plastic bottles, and recirculating high-pressure compressed air. Both have helped to improve the energy efficiency of PET blow molding by reducing compressed air requirements dramatically.
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PET Power Containers and Compressors aiR Us Design Plant Expansion

By Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

PET Power Containers, a Canadian manufacturer of PET plastic containers, had plans for expanding its operations with the addition of more blow-molding equipment. Before the expansion could happen, however, the company needed to assess its compressed air system. Based in Vaughan, Ontario, PET Power provides a dizzying array of differently shaped and sized plastic bottles. Their operations run 24/7, and compressed air plays a key role in their primary manufacturing applications, including PET blow molding, PET preforming, and labeling bottles.
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Fiberglass Parts Plant Finds Savings Beyond the Air Compressor Room

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

A Canadian fiberglass plant has completed a lengthy compressed air improvement journey and achieved significant efficiency gains by applying “the systems approach.” Along the way, the company ran across many frustrating problems, the solutions to which were only determined after the entire system was monitored holistically using data loggers. The overall compressed air audit led to a reduction in energy usage of 48 percent, yielding savings worth \$17,500 per year. The project also qualified for a large utility incentive of \$32,000 with a calculated payback of 4.4 years.
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Compressed Air Demand-Side Demons at a PET Bottle-Blowing Plant

By Pete Rhoten, Air Engineering LLC. and Greg Fitzpatrick, Compressed Air Technologies, Inc.

Sometime in mid-2015, I received a call from a project engineer at a major plastics firm. He had a troubling issue with one of his PET bottle plants. The bottom line was this: They could not run all five high production blow-molding machines at one time—even though they were able to do so 18 months previously.
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Meat Processing Plant Drops Compressed Air Costs 60%

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

One of the statements made in the Compressed Air Challenge’s Fundamentals of Compressed Air Systems seminar is that improvements can always be made to every compressed air system, including new ones. The statement definitely applies to a Canadian pork processing facility built a few years ago. This article is based on a compressed air audit performed two years into the life of a brand new plant. The audit found numerous problems and made recommendations that helped reduce plant compressed air operating costs by 60 percent. 
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