Ideas to reduce energy use

joeparrish

Member
J
Join Date
Nov 2007
Location
owensboro ky
Posts
161
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
 
Just a few thoughts

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.
 
Thomas said:
Replace wormgear boxes with helical or planetary.
Click to expand...


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.
 
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.
 
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+%.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
Thomas said:
Fix air leaks - This is usually the most effective first step.

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

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.
 
joeparrish said:
...
Also what do people mean by hanging fruit
Click to expand...

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
 
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




gbradley said:
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
Click to expand...
 

Similar Topics

CENTER
Any Ideas
I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with a VEGAPULS C 22 Radar sensor. One of my customers got a cold call from one of there reps...
Replies
10
Views
2,796
Levi G
L
D
Help With Ideas Industry 4.0
Hello Collegues ! I am here today looking for help, i recently started a magister in controls and automation. I was thinking in doing an automated...
Replies
7
Views
1,987
drforsythe
D
I
Ask for good ideas about handling floating point number!
We have AOIs for projects, which handle material dosing (by hand or by pipes and pumps), obviously they have comparison between setpoint and...
2 3 4
Replies
50
Views
14,200
iuhytvYUTCU
I
G
OT: Test Cell VFD Ideas
Wizards, With all the extra downtime this year, I have started guiding the newer maint staff through a test cell build. It has been quite...
Replies
1
Views
1,364
jraef
J
K
Electrical Enclosure Cable Entry Ideas
This is a little off the PLC topic but hopefully within the wheelhouse of people here! We have a client who has asked if on a future project they...
Replies
13
Views
5,590
NetNathan
N
Back
Top Bottom