Ideas to reduce energy use

[joeparrish]

I work for a fairly large blow molding factory, and they are wanting to start looking at reducing the use of energy

Right now they are changeing the lights out to t5s becouse they use less energy

I am starting to program in machine not in use timmers to turn off power to thr machines when not in use

looking for other ideas

[BTalbot]

Connell Industries in New Jersey sells an Air Recovery Sytem for Blow Molding equipment. Sound like that could save some energy $$'s
http://www.connell-ind.com/recycling.html

[Thomas]

Fix air leaks - This is usually the most effective first step.

Lower operating air pressures - use fewer scf of air for the same effect.

Right size motors and drives - too large of a motor will waste energy. Also new/replacement motors should be high efficiency.

Replace wormgear boxes with helical or planetary.

[Jeff23spl]

Replace wormgear boxes with helical or planetary.


Start with an intelligent capacitor bank to keep your power factor close to 100% to save on peak demand (KW/KVA=PF)

Install a good filtered VFD drive on principal motors that isn't loaded all the time to save on kw/h and on the peak demand (Usually it is paid by itself in few years)

Replace gearbox by lower speed motor and VFD drive to fit the speed

Look for more efficent motor, compressor and other device that suck energy

Check if you can work your utilisation factor.

For exemple if you have 2 100 hp motor that run 5 minutes a day togheter they give you a peak demand of 200hp (in kva) for the whole month but if it is possible to way for the first one to be stoppped before starting the other one, it will help a lot.

[Oakley]

Energy reduction is conceptually a great idea. Go for the "low hanging fruit" that will get the biggest bang for the buck.

For all the efforts, be sure to begin with a study and calculate an ROI. There are a lot of ideas that don't prove out ... the cost of implementation is higher than the reward.

[StoneMan]

We actually got one of our local colleges to come in and do studies of our process, our building, boilers etc... the students were doing this for their final thesis and did the entire study for free. It was a good report that explained what we should do and showed expected savings based on our current electric and natural gas rates. As Oakley said, we went through the report and took care of the "low hanging fruit" first and built up to the more costly projects.

Get with you vendors to see what incentives the government is giving for energy reduction projects, some of them give back 50+%.

[paulcs]

Thermal blankets for extruder barrels. Electric heat is expensive. Check PID tuning. Oscillation (heat on, cooling on, heat on) is expensive. Check cycle times for temperature zones. Short cycles (1-2 seconds) = tighter control and longer heat life. Short cycles only works with solid state contactors. Mercury contactors or mechanical contactors need long cycles so they last. Machine staging -- check start time, since you want to avoid peak power penalties if you start all of your equipment at 7AM.

[Kev77]

Understand your power bill first!


For example, find out what triggers your peak demand charge and what are you charged for a bad power factor. Where I work now our highest 30 minute continuous period is our peak demand. So staggered starts will not work well for us. When I lived in California you paid a high price for a bad power factor. Now I live in Oregon where it is a very small part of the bill. It doesn't make much sense to install a cap bank that will take 10 years to pay off.

I second the thermal blanket idea, I did it and it worked great other then it took the extruders forever to cool.

[joeparrish]

We do have thermal blankets on all the extruders

Also what do people mean by hanging fruit

[jstolaruk]

Also what do people mean by hanging fruit

The easiest or least expensive changes that get you closer to you desired outcome.

[Russ]

If you have any type of pollution abatement equipment there is generally a number of things that can be done to greatly reduce operating costs.
One of the 5 Tower RTO lowered it's operating costs by over $250,000 compared to the previous year.
If you'd like more information drop me a line.



Regards,
Russ Friend
RHZ Environmental

[TConnolly]

Fix air leaks - This is usually the most effective first step.

Lower operating air pressures - use fewer scf of air for the same effect.


I'll second that.

Compressed air is by far the most expensive utility in a manufacturing plant and it is also usually the first one to be overlooked, despite the potential energy savings from low cost repairs. Leaks cost you big money. Also look at your compressed air practices. For example, using compressed air to sweep the floor is expensive. And take a look at compressor management as well, you may find its not necessary to have all compressors on at all times, especially if they are spending a significant amount of time on standby. Strategically placed surge tanks can help with energy efficient compressor management.

[gbradley]

...
Also what do people mean by hanging fruit

You probably get it already, but here is an analogy for you.

Say the tire pressure on your cars tires is 20 psi, but the recommended tire pressure is 35 psi.
Simply re-inflating your tires to the recommended pressure will improve your gas mileage.
Easy to do makes a big change.
Once you have done this, you have picked that low lying fruit.
In order to improve your car's mileage further, you'll have to reach up for higher fruit... change the air filter, or spark plugs.
A little more difficult, but still worth the effort.

Compressed air, and Electrical heaters sound like low lying fruit.
Good luck

[joeparrish]

Yes I get it
we have addressed the electrcal heaters
and the air compressors I am going to have a company come in and look at if our dryers and tanks are in the best location for this

I am going to do some auto shut offs to the machines and install an asco valves to deal with any air leaks with shutting the power off

Also looking it to the lighting that we are running to light the plant and going to change them out with T5 lights




You probably get it already, but here is an analogy for you.

Say the tire pressure on your cars tires is 20 psi, but the recommended tire pressure is 35 psi.
Simply re-inflating your tires to the recommended pressure will improve your gas mileage.
Easy to do makes a big change.
Once you have done this, you have picked that low lying fruit.
In order to improve your car's mileage further, you'll have to reach up for higher fruit... change the air filter, or spark plugs.
A little more difficult, but still worth the effort.

Compressed air, and Electrical heaters sound like low lying fruit.
Good luck

[joeparrish]

I asked the plant manager about haveing the local tech school come and look at stuff today and he said NOT A CHANCE

oh well

[Roy Matson]

I'm with Kev77 on this Peak demand penalties can be as much as 30% of your power bill. It's a concept that's hard to explain and the power authority won't try because it's money for jam as far as they are concerned.
Can you obtain a printout from the peak demand meter, if so plot the peak demand in Dollars as that usually gets the attention of a bean counter.
It may be that by re-scheduling a task or shedding load you can shave many K$ from the monthly bill with no impact on production.
Keep us posted.
Roy

[The Plc Kid]

On the lighting being switched to t5 you may want to look at LED lights they come in the same size and format as t5 flouresent tubes but at a reduced energy cost and most have 10 year warrantys on the bulbs and fixtures.

[todster]

If you're working with PET and preforms, then reducing your air pressure might be a bad idea. A surge tank at the blow moulder might help, especially when using 500psi air. The non-powered condensation bleed offs (they operate similar to a steam trap)would be an option but price vs. savings might never materialize. Not sure what your blow moulder is but if you are running preforms there are newer options for the heat lamps that use less energy and the wave length actually heats the preforms more evenly.
If you use the correct chemicals in your cooling towers you may be able to run your cycles of concentration at higher levels, up to 10 - 15 CoC in some cases. This will mean fewer bleed offs and less chemicals and biocide used. It will also reduce water consumption considerably, in turn saving electricity to run the water pumps. More than likely drift alone will be ample to meet the bleed off for TDS. The correct chemicals will also minimize system fouling and result in better heat transfer and less energy required. Your chemical guy will disagree but that's because he makes a commission on the products you buy.
Your temp diff. across heat exchangers will indicate fouling.

If you're going to be visually inspecting PET products you might want to consider the lighting options for that particular area.

[Tom Jenkins]

Believe it or not, your local electric utility probably has service reps or engineers that will come in to your plant and help you save electricity. They certainly don't do this because they are nice guys, they do it because they don't have enough peak capacity and don't want to build new plants. I've given energy conservation seminars all over the country for my specific industry, and many were sponsored by and attended by electric utilities.

Contact your electric utility and ask for a demand survey and an energy audit of your facility. This will help identify your options for saving money and where the biggest usage is. Note that saving power isn't the same as saving money. For example, you may not pay power factor penalties. If you have on peak billing or high demand charges simply moving some housekeeping or equipment start up tasks to off peak hours can save $ without changing total energy used.

Some resources:
http://www.cee1.org/
http://www.energy.gov/energyefficiency/industry.htm

[Johnster]

I asked the plant manager about haveing the local tech school come and look at stuff today and he said NOT A CHANCE

oh well

When I hear the words "Local tech school" I think of a High-school level vocational school.
I wouldnt want a bunch of HS students in my plant either =)

You really want a large State/Private University with an Industrial or Electrical Engineering program - I'm sure that UK and UC (Univ. of Cincinnati) have both. Maybe UofL for something closer ? Kids from these places will have some basic 'plant floor' safety awareness and some of them will probably have co-oped at a plant before, so they'll already know your processes - ask about this. If you have some co-op's already, ask them if they have any classes or who would be good to talk to at the engineering school.

This is a win-win. You look good in the local newspaper, get free labor, free cost analyses and you dont have to bid the job =) The students get real experience solving problems and get a glimpse of how the real world really operates.

-John

[brucechase]

On the lighting being switched to t5 you may want to look at LED lights they come in the same size and format as t5 flouresent tubes but at a reduced energy cost and most have 10 year warrantys on the bulbs and fixtures.

Our corporate just asked us to install some LED fixtures to test. At a cost of $475 per fixture versus the $120 for what we use, it should have close to a 12 year payback just for the energy savings. Add in the labor we spent to change these out and our payback is closer to 25 years.

[The Plc Kid]

You also have to factor in reduced maintenance of not having to replace bulbs and ballasts. And we did not pay anywhere near 475.00 per fixture. Install cost is not that high as the wiring is alredy there. Just replace the fixture. Fixture and bulbs have 6-10 year warranty so we do not have to buy any bulbs for that period which saves money also. In the past we spent quite a bit on bulbs and manpower to change them.

[joeparrish]

Was talking about USI and also Uk They have a tech school campus here in town

When I hear the words "Local tech school" I think of a High-school level vocational school.
I wouldnt want a bunch of HS students in my plant either =)

You really want a large State/Private University with an Industrial or Electrical Engineering program - I'm sure that UK and UC (Univ. of Cincinnati) have both. Maybe UofL for something closer ? Kids from these places will have some basic 'plant floor' safety awareness and some of them will probably have co-oped at a plant before, so they'll already know your processes - ask about this. If you have some co-op's already, ask them if they have any classes or who would be good to talk to at the engineering school.

This is a win-win. You look good in the local newspaper, get free labor, free cost analyses and you dont have to bid the job =) The students get real experience solving problems and get a glimpse of how the real world really operates.

-John

[joeparrish]

wHAT IS YOUR SORCE BECOUSE WHAT i HAVE SEEN IS AROUND $400 BUCKS AND UP.

Sorry about caps!

You also have to factor in reduced maintenance of not having to replace bulbs and ballasts. And we did not pay anywhere near 475.00 per fixture. Install cost is not that high as the wiring is alredy there. Just replace the fixture. Fixture and bulbs have 6-10 year warranty so we do not have to buy any bulbs for that period which saves money also. In the past we spent quite a bit on bulbs and manpower to change them.