Energy-Saving Equipment, Will it Save Me Money?
Systems powered by electric motors make up a whopping 40% of the world’s total electricity consumption and 65% in the UK.
However, many companies are unaware of the latest technologies that could significantly reduce energy prices and dramatically reduce global and UK electricity demand by 20% to 30%.
To improve the energy performance of your facility and save costs, Quantum Controls believes in a “try before you buy” approach.
This means business owners and engineers will find significant savings before spending a penny.
To optimize energy use, we look at your system, and test the following:
- What is your installation designed to achieve?
- How well is it doing this?
- What components are involved?
- How do they work together?
- On what grounds have they been selected?
- How well is the application still performing?
Installing high-efficiency motors and drives can result in great energy savings, providing that the installation works as intended in its current setup.
But frequently, users, eager to benefit from energy savings, fit drives in installations that are not properly set up. This may well lead to some energy savings, but the savings achievable by putting the process right would be much greater.
How we can help?
Quantum Controls will come to your site and look at maximise the energy efficiency of your machinery before considering any energy solutions.
Our secret is to get the process right first and then investigate where potential losses occur.
For example, if a system – a conveyor belt, for instance – is frequently running empty, it may be useful to be able to start and stop it according to demand, using a variable-speed drive, without having to think of start-up.
This will be a great boost to energy savings. And your bottom line.
If an application runs frequently with a low load, it can be a good idea to look at synchronous reluctance motors, which often halve losses in low-load conditions.
Optimising energy use is about identifying when energy is used for a purpose, and when it’s not.
The Quantum Controls Q360 Site Survey audit is a good first step toward ensuring that your plant is operating efficiently.
We have for many years offered a more in-depth solution by backing up these surveys with hire trials, whereby you get black and white results with regard to the energy savings available.
We will measure the energy consumption as it is today, then measure again whilst under the new method which is simulated using temporary hire equipment.
The Q360 Energy Survey looks at all aspects of the site surrounding the use of VSDs and power quality, considering all impacts the equipment can have on the site, and looking at all avenues of potential risk and rewards available, with or without the need to purchase new equipment.
For £650 we will do a full day’s audit split into 5 main sections, integrating all of the key areas.
How does it work?
- Power Quality
We analyse the power factor and harmonics on-site as well as the transformer loading %, we also look at the bill and work out what you could save by improving the power quality, in this section will be general information on harmonics and PF, and what it means to the supply, plus site-specific information based on what we found.
- Asset Integrity
We look at the existing assets, and their age, lifecycle position, maintenance history, failure history and general condition, in this section we group the assets into categories, active obsolete, soon to be obsolete etc, and give them a colour coded rating of what would be most damaging in the event of a failure, which items are the highest risk and would take the most work to repair / replace in the event of a breakdown. Recommendations will be made with regard to longevity of the asset life and risk exposure.
- Asset Optimisation
We have a look at the settings and setup of the VSDs to see how they are running, and we again make recommendation based on changing the control of the assets you already have to ensure they are getting the most out of them, both in terms or process control and energy efficiency, looking at things like parallel pumping, flux optimisation, duty standby control, PID control etc.
- Energy saving upgrades
This section of the survey would look at where upgrading and replacing assets would offer than an increase in energy efficiency, more in line with your typical energy report, however, we will use our three-phase logger to show what the load is right now, and predictions based on anticipated savings, the recommendations on this would be along the lines of hires to prove savings, or quotes for the upgrade where it’s beyond doubt.
- Observations and Recommendations
This is an overview of the above sections with recommendations given financial savings, and also general engineers observations, such as filter media was dirty in all panels, or panels we excessively hot etc.
It will also bring all sections of the report together, in that we will consider the impact on Harmonics and power factor that the recommended VSDs will have, we will also offer guidance on where we feel the biggest benefits will be found and prioritise the actions recommended.
Take your first step into reducing the costs of your plant the planet and ensure you’re operating effectively by getting in touch today at [email protected] , call +44 (0)1661 897332 and book your no-obligation free trial or visit our page.