Save money by addressing inefficient compressed air

Imagine coming back from vacation and discovering that you've had the air conditioning running all this time! Ai, with today's high energy prices, that would be an expensive joke. In an industrial environment, you can compare this to machines that operate with compressed air and are not optimized for idle or standby periods or where undetected air leaks occur (almost all systems have leaks). You may think that the machine does not consume much energy, but the reality is different.

A certain amount of inactivity is obviously inevitable when your employees are changing shifts or when the machine is waiting for feed material, so lowering air pressure during these periods is a quick way to address improper compressed air consumption.

Sixty percent energy savings

Take my recent experience with a customer. As with most energy efficiency conversations we have with our customers, we start with monitoring compressed air consumption. Could we implement energy-efficient solutions without monitoring? Yes, but then you would miss essential knowledge, such as the actual ROI (return-on-investment) or environmental impact of the measures we propose.

Monitoring your compressed air consumption, identifying compressed air waste and inefficiencies, and investing in new compressed air equipment are tangible ways to reduce your energy bills. In this case, my client's line was operating 6,000 hours per year at an estimated cost of €0.035 per Nm3. Measurements with an ultrasonic flow meter showed that the flow rate of the line during inactivity was 123 Nl/min (10% of average flow during operation). This 10% leak in that one pipe represented a cost of €1,500. Automatically reducing the pressure of the pipe to 2 bar during inactivity saved €900 per year, a cost reduction of 60%.

The technology that made this success possible? Our Air Management System (AMS). This decentralized system is compatible with OPC UA for a direct data communication link. There is no need for a PLC because the data goes directly to the PC where you collect the data. If no monitoring system is present, our AMS can work independently. You can set parameters directly on the AMS via the web server.