Pretreatment cuts textile maker's energy bill

Toray Textiles Europe has achieved impressive energy savings through the installation of the Fuel+ energy saving solution at its state-of-the-art textile production facility in Mansfield.

Toray Textiles Europe, a leader in advanced synthetic fabric manufacture, has achieved impressive energy savings of over 5% per annum through the installation of the Fuel+ energy saving solution from Maxsys at its state-of-the-art textile production facility in Mansfield.

While the UK textile industry may have contracted, Toray is a progressive UK manufacturer that has invested in the latest technology and deployed innovative process engineering.

Today Toray employs 350 employees and generates annual turnover in the region of GBP 30 million.

Having weathered the storm of low cost overseas competition, soaring energy costs are the last thing required by any UK textile producer.

With this in mind, Toray Textiles decided to investigate the Fuel+ from Maxsys as part of its strategic commitment to cut unit energy consumption by 2% per annum.

Fuel+ operates by applying a precisely calibrated magnetic field to the fuel supplied to the burners.

This pretreatment process enhances combustion, thereby producing a cleaner burn and reduced carbon emissions.

Fuel+ units are designed for installation into vertical or horizontal pipes, there are no moving parts and no electrical supply is required.

"Energy efficiency is an important issue for us at Toray and plays an integral part in our environmental policy", said Mike Fisher, General Manager - Engineering.

Toray Textiles, which is ISO14001:2004 certified, has an environmental policy that includes a commitment to manage responsibly its impact on the environment.

One of its environmental principles states: "to make efficient use of energy, optimise the use of energy where practicable, and minimise greenhouse gas emissions".

"The impact of energy prices means we are always looking to be proactive in energy management", said Fisher.

"We have year-on-year objectives and targets, one of which relates to our boiler efficiency and to reduce the amount of gas consumed".

"We knew that Fuel+ would provide benefits in this area".

The Mansfield site has three 1.6t, gas fired, steam-raising boilers which act as duty, standby (for peak demand) and dry storage, and are rotated every 12 months.

Fuel+ was installed on one of the boilers in December 2004.

ABB was selected as the company to carry out an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the Fuel+ system.

"The installation was carried out by Maxsys during our Christmas shutdown".

"In mid March 2005 we received a report from ABB showing a 5% reduction in gas consumption per tonne of steam produced, as Maxsys had guaranteed", said Fisher.

"We found that Fuel+ offered maximum return when demand was high, which is something that suits our operations at Mansfield".

"Overall it has provided us with a significant improvement in energy use".

"Another advantage of Fuel+ is that it helps reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted", confirmed Fisher.

"During a 20 day period 12,400m3 less gas was consumed than would have been expected if the Fuel+ had not been installed".

"I was so pleased with the results that we asked Maxsys to install a Fuel+ system to another boiler".

Maxsys provides cost effective energy saving equipment across a wide range of industries, including food and drink, chemicals, paper, steel, minerals, textiles, cement, glass, printing, rubber, manufacturing and bricks, as well as process and space heating for the public and private sectors.

Maxsys offers guaranteed savings of at least 5% or any capital outlay is returned.

Other benefits include a reduction in emissions that provides assistance in achieving the Climate Change Levy discount, as well as reduced maintenance and downtime.

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