Western Michigan
Problem:
No performance or cost information about the air compressor system was available. Multiple air compressors were running in load/unload, without proper control. This resulted in a lot of wasted energy. The team was looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of their compressed air system and increase awareness of compressed air cost and usage.
Solution:
To evaluate the system efficiency, we performed an energy audit with the AIRLEADER Data Logger. The Airleader data logger is designed specifically for compressed air audits. It captures data on KW usage, flow information, system pressure load/unload cycles, compressor starts and much more for 7 days using one second readings. The KW usage can be based on 3 phase amp and 3 phase voltage probes. The evaluation software provides us with many data points, in particular the KW/100 CFM allows us to quickly evaluate the overall efficiency of the system based on CAGI Rating of the Compressors we can indicate efficiency improvement potentials.
Quantitative Results:
Energy savings amounted to 31.1 % from 25.8 KW/100 CFM to 17.88 KW/100 CFM, thereby reducing the energy use from 1,774,462 kWh to 1,150,354 kWh for a total savings of 624,108 kWh per year. Over the span of 10 years this amounts to a savings of 6,241 MWH. At an estimated energy cost of 10 cents/kWh this totals to savings of $624,108.
Payback time for this particular installation was 6.9 months.
CO2 savings of this project amounts to 842,545 pounds/year based on the 2000 electricity mix. This energy savings is the equivalent needed to run the electricity of 55 average US households based on 2005 EIA data.