After a proactive compressed air audit carried out at the Smurfit Kappa corrugated packaging plant in Weston Super Mare found that the compressed air system was wasting over 30 per cent of the energy it was consuming, the company found that an EnergAir control system could prevent most of the losses
A figure of 30 per cent losses might look surprisingly high, but is not unusual in this industry: the plant was operating with fixed-speed compressors on a cascade pressure switch control system, which consumes a large amount of energy while offload. Following recommendations from compressed air control specialist JM Control Solutions, a new EnergAir management control system and variable speed drive (VSD) compressor were installed, reducing Smurfit’s yearly energy costs on compressed air by over 27 per cent.
Smurfit Kappa is making every effort to improve efficiency and reduce energy usage — the organisation is eager to reduce its energy consumption, not only to help lower its overheads but also to reduce its carbon footprint. As most site managers know, compressed air systems use a lot of energy and Smurfit's Engineering Manager, Andy Bale, had singled the system out for investigation.
“There are various reasons why a compressed air system may not be running efficiently,” said Richard Peutril of JM Control Solutions. “Switching fixed-speed compressors on and off via a cascade pressure switch control system, for example, is massively inefficient, often running a compressor when only a small amount of output is needed from it. With the relentless energy price rises currently being seen at the moment it is essential for companies to challenge this convention.”
When operating on a cascade system with fixed speed compressors, the demand for compressed air will likely vary between the capacities of the installed compressors. This leads to an increase in offload running and a deterioration in system efficiency. The Smurfit Kappa site shows a perfect example of this, often running a second 90kW compressor when just a small amount of additional capacity was needed, meaning 84 per cent of energy consumed by that compressor was wasted.
Profiling air demand
Buying a new compressor can sometimes damage efficiency if the wrong size is chosen, so it is important to profile the demand for compressed air on a site and work out the most efficient combination of compressors needed. VSD compressors are often purchased with good intentions — but unmanaged by an effective management control system such as EnergAir’s Metacentre control system, it will rarely deliver any overall savings.
Pete Tomlins of EnergAir says: “There are varying solutions offered for improving compressed air energy efficiency. These can range from replacing auxiliary equipment and piping to finding and blocking leaks, but these often lessen the problem rather than solving it. At EnergAir we believe that customers deserve a solution that ensures their system will run as efficiently as possible, and getting hard and fast site data is an essential first step”
Here, the audit included monitoring air usage very precisely for 165 hours with a high frequency data log rate of every five seconds. The site’s two larger 90kW compressors and a smaller 60kW compressor were all fixed speed at the time. In total, non-productive energy made up 35.58 per cent of the energy cost for running Smurfit Kappa’s system, adding thousands of pounds to the annual energy bill.
Varying capacity requirements of the site meant that equipment was rarely operating optimally. When one compressor wasn’t producing sufficient capacity, a second was started, loading and unloading to satisfy any shortfall, often using only 16 per cent of its energy consumption productively. In addition, the cascade operating system which was in use added to the poor overall performance of the system.
Eradicate over-pressurisation
After the audit two recommendations were made which, combined, would make an estimated saving of over 27 per cent on Smurfit Kappa’s energy bill for compressed air. Firstly, in order to manage the compressed air system in an efficient way, and provide the platform to coordinate the different compressors with the factories demand for compressed air, it was recommended that a new EnergAir Metacentre management control system be installed. This system was linked to pressure sensors throughout the compressed air ring main, which could then monitor the entire compressed air system and eradicate over-pressurisation.
Secondly, it was recommended that a VSD be retrofitted to one of the compressors or a new VSD compressor be installed. With precision VSD regulation controlled by the Metacentre system, this would ensure that all compressors were utilised to generate the required output capacity as efficiently as possible. A new VSD compressor was chosen: now installed, these recommendations have made a considerable difference to the sites energy usage — the compressed air system is using 29.01 per cent less kW/M3/min, which is saving thousands of pounds per year.
“For many in industry, the rising energy prices are seen as a problem that cannot be avoided," adds EnergAir's Pete Tomlins. "We are able to provide customers with a way to combat these price rises."
