Compressed air is expensive to generate and cost amounts to a major share of your energy bill. Therefore, optimizing compressed air systems makes up for an interesting exercise to realize large potential for savings that helps reduce energy bills and improve productivity in your facility. Read here some of the most effective tips for air compressor optimization and adopting sustainable energy practices.
Air compression systems are one of the chief utilities deployed in factories and industrial units. But do you know air compressors can shoot up the electricity bill up to 40% in your facility? Hence, one of the best practice solutions is to optimize your compressed air system and keep energy consumption under check. In this blog, we discuss why it is important to execute an optimization process and the right way of getting around to it.
Why should you optimize your compressed air system?
Usually, a compressed air installation reflects history of expansion, changes, upgrades and so on. This doesn’t always add up to an efficient compressed air system where all components work together optimally.
Also known as the fourth utility, air compressors help improve the efficiency of industrial operations and can be achieved in 3 steps: Analyse, Optimize and Monitor. To put it simply, air compressor optimization is a technique to maintain the optimal conditions that support operations by this critical equipment in an industrial unit. Some of the objectives to achieve by following this engineering technique approach are given below:
- Save electricity
- Reduce maintenance
- Decrease downtime
- Increase productivity
- Improve product quality
How to optimize your air compressor
There are 9 effective ways to optimize.
1. Favourable environment
Install your compressor equipment in a clean environment to allow smooth air flow through the system. Factors like ventilation plan, optimum air circulation, minimum free spacing between units, all add up to maximum uptime and longer life of compressors. Watch out for dust accumulation, ambient temperature increase, or humidity levels inside the room.
2. Equipment sizing & technology selection
Both – under sizing and oversizing can be a problem. When selecting a compressor consider the application in question, volume of air and minimum pressure needed. If undersized, the application won’t run due to air starvation and if oversized you could end up with lots of wasted power.
Selecting the right technology either piston, or screw or centrifugal air compressor based on the total flow and operating pressure along with the demand pattern will determine the best technology to go for as it will bring long term benefits on the efficiency of each technology to operate at the required flow and pressure.
3. Install rightly sized receiver tanks
Having enough storage receivers can help improve overall efficiency in a few ways.
The central receiver right after the compressor can better regulate load/ unload cycle of the compressors and significantly reduce unload power in the system which is wasted energy.
Receiver tanks placed along the production area or close to machines with high consumption can avoid sudden pressure drops and ensure smooth air supply.
4. Monitoring the system
Monitoring and data collection techniques enable the maintenance team to keep a tab on the current working condition of the air compressor and look for any technical hiccups. Furthermore, technologies like SMARTLINK, are automated and underpinned on smart algorithms, the maintenance team can get alerts and stay up-to-date even when not in proximity to the compressor room.
The elimination of manual input makes it easier for everyone to gain insightful data, automate the maintenance process, prepare for proactive maintenance schedules, and streamline the workflow in the industrial plant. Overall, monitoring your air compressor will lead to optimized performance, reduced energy bills, and prove to be cost-effective in the long run.
5. Improve air treatment efficiency
Air dryers and filters are important air treatment equipment. While the dryer helps check moisture creation within the compressor, the filter helps remove particulates from the air, thereby preventing contamination of the system.
Timely maintenance and regularly replacing filter elements is the key to prevent to unnecessary extra energy consumption created to overcome pressure drop or loss from moisture build-up in the pipeline.
Oil free screw air compressors placed as the best fit technology when it comes to air quality and lowest life cycle cost by elimination of down stream filtration that eliminate pressure drop that can reach to 1 bar in the filtration and large amount of oil to be changed in the traditional typical oil injected technology .
6. Equipment replacement or upgrade for better efficiency
It’s a fact that almost 70% of your compressor system’s life cycle cost eventually comes down to its energy usage in the long run. In this connection, updating or switching your air compressor can check energy consumption significantly.
Opting for a modern compressor with advanced motors and controllers is a more cost-effective option than incurring the running cost of your inefficient or old compressor.
For example, you can install a Variable Speed Drive (VSD) compressor in place of a fixed compression system to ensure great savings. Preventing energy wastage, a VSD compressor helps save up to 35% energy, while a Premium VSD+ unit from Atlas Copco’s ZR /ZT series may save 50% energy even when at full load, compared to fixed speed compressors.
7. Efficient control to manage compressor and dryer
A compressed air system comprises multiple dryer/compressor units with varying capacities and speed control motors. This setup has to be efficiently managed using an advanced central control system.
It’s worth mentioning that Optimizer 4.0 Central Controller is an ideal fit for smart industrial facilities making it easier to reduce excessive production of air. Not only can it gather data and analyse information on the cloud for improved efficiency, but the controllers can also automatically shut down the compressors during non-production times.
8. Upgrade compressed air piping
Compressed air piping is a critical part of your equipment that transports compressed air to end-use applications. The system design certainly impacts the efficiency of your compressor air system, but the selection of piping material is also important. While aluminium air piping is sought after due to its lightweight and structural strength, stainless steel pipes are resistant to corrosion for oil-free compressors.
Recalculating the network of compressed air piping for better system design, reducing the pressure drop between the point of consumption and compressor can prove to be cost-effective and energy-saving in the long run.
Further, air velocity should be at an ideal level of 6m/s or less to avoid problems like erratic control signals, turbulence-induced pressure drop, and backpressure.
9. Implement leakage repair and detection
According to studies, more or less 25% of total compressed air is lost due to system leakage. In extreme cases, the percentage can be as high as 80%. The cost of system leakage can also be massive.
Therefore, getting an air leak test conducted by an expert is always suggested to optimize the compressor’s operations while keeping the production cost under check.
Conclusion
Air compressor systems are vital to key processes of your industrial facility, and by optimizing them, you are enabling energy efficiency improvement in your unit. Atlas Copco manufactures and sells state-of-the-art compressed air systems to cater to an array of industries. Talk to one of our experts to select the right system for your requirement.
