End Uses

BC Hydro is a sponsor of Compressed Air Challenge and one of two Canadian utilities represented on the Board of Directors. BC Hydro’s Power Smart Compressed Air Optimization program helps customers assess how their air system is working, helps with project implementation costs and provides for onsite training of plant personnel. The following profiles tell how two of their customers discovered excellent savings through the application of low cost measures.

Compressed Air Best Practices interviewed Gregory Rhames, Asset Reliability Manager/Energy Manager at Verallia.

As background, Verallia is the packaging division of Saint-Gobain. Verallia employs 15,500 people globally and makes about 25 billion glass bottles and jars each year. We employ 350 people at Madera where we produce about 1 million wine, champagne and sake bottles per day.

Bottling companies and breweries, in California, are benefiting from a three-step system assessment process aimed at reducing the electrical consumption of their compressed air systems. The three-step process reduces compressed air demand in bottling lines by focusing on open blowing and idle equipment, and then improves the specic power (reducing the energy consumption) of the air compressors.

Compressed air system refinements have cut operating costs at a Milk Plant located in Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada by 62%, for annual savings of nearly \$30 000. The improvements were made following a compressed air audit that recommended consolidating two compressed air systems into one, installing a variable speed drive compressor, and making a handful of additional basic improvements.

This article describes a compressed air retrofit project implemented at Kellogg’s Eggo factory located in San Jose, California. Kellogg’s continues to realize both annual energy savings and quality improvements because of the upgrade. In addition, Kellogg’s received a substantial utility incentive from Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which was based on the achieved energy savings.

Power Smart® efficiency measures for compressed air systems at Tolko’s paper mill and sawmill at The Pas are saving the company more than \$125,000 a year.

Air-operated double-diaphragm (AODD) pumps are known for their positive attributes of handling fluids that are heavily laden with solids, abrasive materials, shear sensitive liquids (paints and coatings) and the ability to pump soft solids without damaging the product. They are also popular because they are lightweight, portable and easy to use due to their pneumatic power.

This pharmaceutical plant spends \$265,100 annually on energy to operate the compressed air system at their facility. This figure will increase as electric rates are projected to be raised from their current average of 7.7 cents /kWh. The set of projects identified in the compressed air system assessment could reduce these energy costs by \$139,300 per year (52%).

“Sandblasting” is one of the oldest and most used methods of metal treatment. Various abrasive materials may be loaded manually or by a vacuum system pulling the “grit” from a storage tank. A control valve then operates with the compressed air (bypassing the vacuum pump), being forced into the tank pressurizing the receiver. When the high pressure compressed air goes out the discharge line, it pulls the appropriate amount of grit with it to effectively impinge against the targeted metal surface.

When was the last time you visited your compressor room? A week ago? Several weeks ago? If you are like many, you went in for the last scheduled maintenance interval and have rarely been back since. Air compressors, dryers and other air system components have become more reliable and self sustaining from a maintenance standpoint with each generation, requiring less and less human intervention.