Soft starters provide a greener shredding solution

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 19, 2006

Soft starters have overcome problems of limited supply capacity and high peak demand charges experienced by Evergreen Security Shredding.

Fairford soft starters are overcoming the problems of limited supply capacity and high peak demand charges experienced by Evergreen Security Shredding, at a cost less than 25% of the GBP 30,000 required to implement the alternative solution of uprating of the local substation.

Evergreen Security Shredding was set up in July 2000 with the objective of providing an environmentally better solution to the problems of shredding and recycling confidential paper-based media and data stored on disks, tapes and film.

The company's business has grown rapidly, resulting in heavy investment in new equipment; however, this has not been without its problems.

The electrical supply to Evergreen's premises is provided from a local substation with limited capacity.

The ramifications of this became evident during startup of the company's two state-of-the-art shredders: high current surges were dimming the lights, not only within Evergreen's own premises, but also of neighbouring units.

As a result, Evergreen was incurring high peak demand charges.

The scale of the charges prompted Evergreen's management to look into the cost of uprating the substation; however, this was in the region of GBP 30,000, which was prohibitive in cost terms, and not really in keeping with the company's stance on environmental matters.

These reservations impelled Evergreen to seek an alternative solution; a number of companies were contacted but, unfortunately, these failed to assist.

Subsequent searching revealed Fairford's name: contact was established and the outcome was a visit by Fairford engineers to carry out tests on a range of electric motors at Evergreen's Avonmouth site.

The two-part tests involved fitting Fairford StartMaster soft starters to a number of auxillary motors, and a QFE soft starter to the large shredder motor.

The tests were positive, revealing that the StartMaster units reduced current surges at start up.

Similarly, the QFE soft starter resolved the problem of high inrush current on the large shredder motor; it also provided a solution in situations where the shredder jammed and had to be reversed.

As an added bonus, the QFE unit realised energy savings, typically 1kW, due to its ability to optimise when running lightly loaded.

The total cost of providing the soft starter systems to Evergreen was less than 25% of the GBP 30,000 required for uprating the substation.

"We are delighted with the solution provided by Fairford, not only on the grounds of cost, but also because it is environmentally sound", said Jeff Rendall Business Advisor to Evergreen.

"Our business is heavily environmentally related, so a solution which means that we can use the existing power supply provision is very much in keeping with the spirit and the ethos of our operations".