Energy efficiency advice & tips
Compressed Air
Compressed air is widely used for many applications in industry and in the commercial
and public buildings sector accounting for approximately 40% of the total energy
consumption. It is often the highest electrical use in many industrial facilities
because most of the electricity used to compress air is converted to waste heat.
Finding alternatives to the use of compressed air or changing to a device that uses
less compressed air will significantly reduce overall running costs.
Savings are achieved through:
- Undertaking a survey of compressed air
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Understanding the system and raising awareness of all users of the proper use of
compressed air will produce potential savings of 10 to 15%.
- Reducing operating pressure
-
Compressors, that cost £1,500 a year at 7 bar pressure to run, would only cost around
£1,400 to run at 6 bar.
- Repairing leaks
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If you have a 30kW compressor running on load for 8 hours per day and 40% is wasting
away, then you could be losing the equivalent of £1,600 per year.
- Improving sequencing controls
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Installing system and drive controls together with switching off when not needed
will realise savings up to 15%.
- Reducing end use of compressed air
-
Replace compressed air powered tools with equivalent electrically powered tools,
as these are around 90 percent cheaper to operate than compressed air tools. Compressed
air is actually the most expensive utility used on site (costing up to €1.10per
unit of energy - kWh) due to its inherent inefficiency, with up to 95 percent of
the input energy being released as heat.
- Improving intake design
-
If your 40 kW compressor is drawing air from within a room with an ambient air temperature
of 33°C, you will be adding about 4% to the running cost, which could mean an extra
£800 per year, based on a 40 hour week.
- Minimising distribution pressure drop
-
Isolate redundant pipework to areas that no longer need compressed air.Exact savings
will depend upon your own system.
- Improving moisture removal
-
Providing ultra clean air when basic filtered air is all that is required will be
costing you dearly in energy and filters. Drying also costs significant amounts
as the air has to be cooled to separate the moisture although you should ensure
that you are filtering and drying to the required standard. This will lead to good
financial savings.
- Consider heat recovery
-
Recovering heat could save approximately 35% of the compressor's input power as
a "free" heat source.
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