Major Nashville Manufacturing Facility

Intelligent balancing of compressed air output and demand helps major US manufacturer to save almost $58,000 per annum

When EnergAir’s experts in the US carried out a compressed air audit at a leading manufacturing facility in Nashville, TN they found that around 25% more energy was being consumed than was actually required.

Compressed air systems are a major contributor to energy wastage in industry worldwide and EnergAir has unrivalled expertise in identifying and removing the associated inefficiencies. As such, they were able to develop a bespoke solution at the plant that is now delivering savings approaching $58,000 per annum and which should provide a return on investment within 14 months.

“As an organisation, we continually evaluate our operations to enhance efficiency. We had suspected for some time that electricity was being wasted within our production lines and called in the EnergAir team to investigate. They had proven that they had the know-how to highlight areas where energy was being lost and to implement a system that could provide measurable long term commercial benefits”.

The company’s Associate Staff Engineer

“Stronger overseas competition, the increasing importance being placed upon environmental issues and rising electricity costs mean that it is now more important than ever for manufacturers based in the US to exploit every opportunity to cut costs and maximise operating efficiencies. EnergAir understands this and has developed a proven approach that has helped countless organisations to remove waste within their compressed air systems. With the reassurance that these systems are taken care of, clients are free to focus on improving efficiency in other key areas of their businesses”.

Nicolas De Deken of EnergAir

The audit carried out by EnergAir included a detailed examination of the Nashville plant’s existing compressed air installations which comprised:

• 1 Quincy QSI245 50HP water cooled compressor.
• 1 Quincy QSI500 125 HP water cooled compressor.
• 2 Quincy QSI1000 200 HP water cooled compressors.
• 2 PPC 1600-CABII-A4B1-F01/C5-P4 heated desiccant dryers

Compressors, compressor rooms and pipework were all carefully audited. EnergAir’s compressed air specialists monitored the performance of the compressed air system’s core components, recorded every area where energy was being lost and presented their findings.

They concluded:

• That the existing compressor installations had no trimming capabilities and unloaded when there was an imbalance between output and demand.
• This unloading was resulting in significant energy loss.
• A consistent and efficient operating pressure was not being maintained throughout the system.
• The annual energy consumption of 2,409,000 kWh was far greater than it should have been to deliver the required compressed air output.

EnergAir used these findings and the working knowledge they had developed of the plant to devise a solution to very closely align compressed air output with demand. Once implemented, this would help to ensure that the system was only producing air that would be used within the plant’s manufacturing processes.

Two of the existing compressors were replaced with Quincy Power$ync QSI1000 200HP models equipped with trimming capabilities. In addition, EnergAir’s unique Metacentre SX management system was integrated to continuously run the most efficient combination of compressors. Metacentre SX was also introduced to help match output with demand and to reduce unloading.

Energy consumption has been cut significantly as a result of a 2 PSI pressure band now being constantly maintained. This has been achieved through the intelligent PID regulation of the Metacentre SX that controls the Power$ync compressors. Motorized valves will isolate parts of the demand side piping during times of no production and as such limit the waste of air through leaks. The motorized valves can be controlled locally though an ON/OFF switch or remotely through the TX Cyber Console software.

The results delivered by the improvements have been remarkable

• 97.7% of compressed air produced is now used for production purposes.
• Annual energy consumption has fallen by over 600,000 kWh or 25%.
• Annual savings equate to $57,862.
• The system enhancements were completed at a cost of $65,000 and will be paid for by the resulting savings in under 14 months.

Furthermore, the status, line pressure, sump pressure, discharge temperature, sump temperature, running hours, loaded hours and service timers are all accurately monitored for each compressor along with compressor room temperature, dryer room ambient temperature and other key performance criteria for each individual system component.

“We are delighted with our decision to enlist the help of EnergAir. Their approach throughout the project has been extremely professional and they have worked closely in partnership with us to deliver major operational improvements. We are now successfully matching compressed air production with demand throughout the plant and have made costly unloading a thing of the past. More importantly, EnergAir have delivered a genuine ROI and the new installations are set to pay for themselves in little over a year.”

“We certainly intend to work with EnergAir in the future to ensure that these and other savings are maximised long term”.

The plant’s HVAC Technician