Industrial Utility Efficiency
Blowing a jet of compressed air at an object is a common but “poor” use of compressed air. Often the blowing nozzle is a piece of pipe on a hose with a manual valve for control. This quickly solves a production problem when a more efficient factory made nozzle is either physically too big, too expensive, or not on site when needed. Retrofitting with factory made nozzles is often ruled out by for the same reasons, and the time needed by managers and fitters to change a nozzle for often little gain in production.
This aluminum mill spends \$369,000 annually in energy costs to operate their compressed air system. This system assessment recommends actions reducing annual energy costs by \$120,000 and improving productivity and quality by delivering clean, dry compressed air.
This major mill complex upgraded their compressed air system and thereby eliminated \$500,000 in annual rental compressor costs, reduced annual cooling-water costs by \$500,000, and reduced electrical energy costs by \$135,000 per year.
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)
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.
This refinery currently spends \$735,757 annually on the electricity required to operate the compressed air system at its plant. The group of projects recommended in the system assessment will reduce these energy costs by an estimated \$364,211 (49% of current use). Estimated costs for completing the recommended projects total \$435,800. This figure represents a simple payback period of 14.4 months. The firm also reduced compressed air demand by 732 scfm allowing them to save \$441,544 by down-sizing the back-up rental diesel air compressors.
This article presents a case study of Grimmway Farms; a carrot growing and packing firm located in California’s Central Valley that was able to improve its compressed air system efficiency after implementing system automation and making relatively small equipment and piping changes.
This commercial printing facility is located in the Northeastern part of the U.S. Like most facilities, the plant has seen many changes over the years.
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.
How do you test a 747 engine to ensure reliability once it’s airborne at 600 miles an hour?
This facility processes bulk food ingredients into finished packaged food products. The factory belongs to a division of a large corporation and was spending \$732,342 annually on energy to operate their compressed air system. This system assessment detailed twelve (12) project areas where yearly energy savings totaling \$214,907 could be found with a minimal investment of \$68,350. Due to space constraints, this article will detail only the higher impact project areas. The over-all strategy for improving this air system centers on improving specific power performance of the #3 centrifugal air compressor and reducing over-all demand with compressed air savings projects.
