COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEM

QUICK ASSESSMENT AND SUGGESTION OF ENERGY SAVING MEASURES

In industrial production, compressed air is very popular, often used in most of factories. However, the loss or inefficient energy consumption is also the problem of this system. Therefore, to assess the current situation of energy consumption of compressed air system, here are some professional knowledge, real experience related to compressed air system shared by ENERTEAM to help enterprises, particularly technicians/operators for reference or using as technical documents for daily working with this system.

1. DATA SHOULD BE COLLECTED TO ASSESS THE COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEM

No.	DETAILS	COLLECTED DATA
1	Type of compressor
2	Method of control
3	Rated power (kW)
4	Free air delivery (cfm hay m³/min)
5	Pressure at receiver tank (bar)
6	Setting pressure (bar)
7	Pressure at the end of pipe
8	Load/unload time (s)
9	Inlet air temperature (^oC)

10

Ambition temperature (^oC)

2. TYPICAL ENERGY SAVING MEASURES

a. Avoid leakages, using compressed air for wrong purposes

Leaks cause an increase in compressors’ energy consumption and maintenance costs. The most common leaks identified are couplings, hoses, pressure regulators.

A typical plant that has not been well maintained could have a leak rate between 20 to 50% of total compressed air production capacity. Leak repair and maintenance can sometimes reduce this number to less than 10%.

b. Reduce inlet air temperature

Reducing the inlet air temperature reduces energy consumption of compressor. As a rule of thumb, each 3°C reduction will save 1% of energy consumption of compressor.

c. Reduce setting pressure of compressor

When the operating pressure decreases by 1 bar, the compressor’s energy consumption will decrease by 6%.

d. Install VSD for compressor

When the unload time is higher than 20%, the factory should consider to install VSD for air compressors or investing new air compressors with VSD integration.

e. Heat recovery

More than 85% of the electricity consumption by an industrial air compressor is converted into heat. In many cases, a heat recovery unit can recover 50 to 90% of the available heat for space heating, industrial process heating, water heating, makeup air heating, boiler makeup water preheating.

Some typical energy saving measures for compressed air system that are shown above aim to provide technicians/operators in factories with documents for reference or using for daily working to follow up and maintain this system. In addition, enterprises could improve such losses related to energy consumption as well as energy costs for this system in production.

Please feel free to contact ENERTEAM for any further information or consultancy on this topic.

DOCUMENTS

COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEM