About Compressor Energy Solutions
Industrial compressed air systems are notoriously inefficient. The US Dept of Energy has identified compressed air systems as the largest potential energy demand savings for manufacturing. The "wire-to-air" efficiency of a typical compressed air system can be as low as 10-15%. Most facilities managers know that they can save energy and money by improving the efficiency of their compressed air system. But, how much will it cost? And how much can they expect to save?Compressor Energy Solutions, Inc (CES) provides answers with our Air Power Analysis Package (APAP). APAP is a turnkey platform for metering, measuring and analyzing industrial compressed air systems. It includes meters for power, airflow, and air pressure, along with data logging and analysis tools. Using uploaded metering data, logged at 3 second intervals, APAP builds an airflow-to-power profile that quantifies the efficiency of the system.
APAP is a hosted application, uploading metered data to the CES server on the internet, and providing airflow-to-power efficiency reports via a web-interface.
After profiling the current airflow to power, APAP allows you to project the potential savings that can be garnered through our ROI analysis toolkit. This tool allows the user to build a proposal including changes to the compressor package, taking into consideration expected demand reduction, and calculate the ROI for those changes.
The best practices for compressed air system energy optimization were established by the US Dept. of Energy, Compressed Air Challenge (www.compressedairchallenge.org). They mandate that the compressed air demand (i.e. consumption) must be optimized first - eliminating inappropriate use, fixing leaks, and reducing artificial demand. Then, the compressed air supply (air compressors and tanks) must be "right-sized" to optimally meet that demand.
In the APAP Proposal Editor, the user can:
- Set an expected Demand Reduction
- Add and remove air compressors using published CAGI data sheets
- Change air compressor control types (e.g. Modulation to Load/No-Load)
- Simulate adding air receivers (increasing the storage capacity for Load/No-Load systems)
- Run an ROI analysis of these proposed changes
The CES server has a comprehensive database of more than 1000 published CAGI data sheets for air compressors from Atlas Copco, CompAir, Gardner Denver, Ingersoll-Rand, Kaeser, Quincy, and Sullair.
ROI projections are based on algorithms published by Compressed Air Challenge (CAC) and the Compressed Air and Gas Institute (CAGI).
After the compressed air system optimization steps have been performed and remediation steps are complete, APAP can be used to measure the results to verify that performance objectives have been achieved. APAP can provide on-going analysis of leak load and periodic air-power energy analysis to ensure that projected savings are realized and sustained.