Compressed air control cuts running costs

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Aug 14, 2000

Energair's Air Management system adds control and continuous monitoring to compressed air installations and is capable of reducing energy costs in a matter of days.

The manufacturing industry is finding profitability eroded for all sorts of reasons, and is continually scrutinising operating costs to make savings and improve margins.

Energair's Air Management system adds control and continuous monitoring to compressed air installations and is capable of reducing energy costs in a matter of days.

Using trusted and reliable sequencer technology and operating within a service environment, Energair's Air Management system is a powerful tool in the search for reduced fuel costs, reduced Climate Charge Levy payments (after April 2001), and therefore better margins.

Purchase price is a relatively small component of lifetime cost for a compressed air system.

About 80% of lifetime cost is energy in the form of electricity.

EnergAir's twin aims are to reduce electrical consumption of compressed air systems and to increase their efficiency.

By applying Energair's control philosophy, together with industry best practice as developed by EEBPP (Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme), savings of as much as 35% should be achievable.

EnergAir concentrates on the compressed air end user, putting in place products for both distributors and their clients.

Compressed air users will install on-site dataloggers to keep continuous track of air system performance, and they will download data to distributors for analysis on a regular basis.

Distributors will be able to advise on ways to improve system performance and end users will save money because they consume less energy.

The relationship between service provider and end user will be strengthened.

EnergAir offers the compressed air business five types of product: A range of control products starting with compressed air system controllers, which monitor compressors and make decisions based on pre-set parameters.

Datalogger and analysis software, normally located at a distributor's site.

This can be used to audit a site and set up the key performance indicators against which subsequent logging will be compared.

End users are provided with optimisation reports to identify further energy-saving potential.

Interface modules, which allow air system controllers to work with a number of different manufacturers' compressors.

An active network interface, which is an event-driven dial out facility.

The event could be a service events - time for maintenance - or 'machine in distress' or 'service disruption'.

There is an event management function which sends monitoring data to the distributors host system, to help continuously improve the system.

EnergAir provides a host service for distributors, comprising hardware, software and database.

This way the datalogger is provided as an application service to the distributor.

The company works with top level distributors and large companies operating multiple manufacturing sites to provide new, higher levels of service for the compressed air user.

Services include air performance audits, monitoring and putting best practice operating procedures alongside intelligent control technology to continuously improve compressed air system efficiency and reduce downtime.