Introduction

As a manufacturer, you get that energy management is important when it comes to the success and sustainability of your company. Due to this, it is crucial that you discover new ways to reduce energy in your everyday usage. You can help to enhance your current energy use. After all, energy savings specifically can lead to huge savings overall. This Fact File gives a detailed look at energy saving tips geared toward manufacturers. With this information presented, you can help to better achieve sustainability for your company.

Background

Energy is used widely throughout manufacturing facilities. Fuels heat materials in furnaces or produce hot water and steam in boilers. The steam dries, heats, or separates product flows. Electricity powers motor systems for air conditioning, lighting, and appliances. Motor systems pump fluids and compress gases or air and move them around. Compressed air drives machinery. For almost all facilities, all these systems offer extensive potential for energy‐efficiency improvement and cost reductions.

Even though there is a lot of diversity in energy end uses, for most plants just a few bits of equipment use most of the fuel or electricity. In general, motor systems use the largest amount of electricity in most industrial facilities. After that comes process heating and cooling, building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), and lighting. The main ones that usually dominate fuel use include process heating, boiler fuel, and combined heat and power (CHP), and/or cogeneration processes. Energy savings are money that you would have to pay your utility. Think about if you could save that for other business priorities instead.

Motor systems

Motors are found in your process equipment, HVAC systems, air compressors, and other systems. The following steps can help you manage your motor systems:

• Locate and identify all facility motors.
• Document conditions and specifications of each motor to give an updated systems inventory.
• Assess the needs and the use of the motor systems to decide if motors are appropriately sized for the equipment being served and how the motor is being operated.
• Gather information on possible repairs and upgrades to the motor systems.
• If doing upgrades, monitor the performance of the upgraded motor systems to identify actual costs savings.
• For equipment that runs at different speeds, consider installing Adjustable‐Speed Drives (ASD) or Variable‐Speed Drives (VSD). These can help better match speed to load requirements for motor operations. Therefore, they ensure that motor energy use is optimized to a certain application. Energy savings can range from 7% up to 60%.

Compressed air

Compressed air is one of the least energy efficient systems in an industrial plant. This is due to the amount of energy needed for compression and distribution. Inadequate maintenance can lower compression efficiency and increase air leakage or pressure variability. This can cause increased operating temperatures, bad moisture control, and unnecessary contamination of compressed air system components. Consider the following maintenance ideas to reduce these problems and save energy:

• Monitor motor cooling. Poor motor cooling can increase motor temperature and wind resistance. All of this can shorten motor life and raise energy consumption. Keep motors and compressors properly lubricated and cleaned. Sample and analyze compressor lubricant every 1,000 hours. Confirm that it is at the proper level.
• Monitor compressed air use. Proper monitoring of compressed air systems can save energy and money. Monitoring includes the following:
  • Pressure gauges on each receiver or main branch line and differential gauges across dryers and filters
  • Temperature gauges across the compressor and its cooling system to detect fouling and blockages
  • Flowmeters to measure air quantity used
  • Dew point temperature gauges to monitor air dryer efficacy
  • Kilowatt‐hour meters and hours‐run meters on the compressor drive.
• Reduce leaks in pipes and equipment. Fixing leaks in a compressed air system is can lower annual energy consumption by 20%. An easy way to detect large leaks is to apply soapy water to suspect areas. The best method to detect leaks is to use an ultrasonic acoustic detector. It can distinguish the high‐frequency hissing sounds linked to air leaks. After identifying them, leaks should be tracked, repaired, and verified.
• Turn off needless compressed air. Equipment that is no longer using compressed air should have the air turned off entirely. This can be done with a solenoid valve. Check compressed air distribution systems when equipment has been reconfigured to ensure no air is flowing to unused equipment.
• Reduce pressure. Try to use the lowest possible pressure level to run the system.

Steam systems

The most significant industrial applications for steam are process heating, drying, concentrating, steam cracking, distillation, and driving machinery like compressors.

Related Definitions

“Distillation” means the process of purifying a liquid by consecutive evaporation and condensation.

“Condensing boiler” means a commercial packaged boiler that condenses part of the water vapor in the flue gases, and that includes a means of collecting and draining this condensate from its heat exchanger section.

“Variable‐Speed Drives” means a device that consists of a three-phase air-conditioning induction motor and a variable frequency power supply.

Key to Remember

While it is important to think of specific energy efficiency practices targeted to certain machines and systems, don’t forget that all the systems have general practices for energy efficiency. Make sure to turn off idling equipment, machines, and systems. The more it runs, the more it costs for you. Even the simple act of reducing startup and shutdown times for equipment, machines, and systems can make a big difference.

Real World Example

A major pharmaceutical manufacturer headquartered in New Jersey joined ENERGY STAR, a voluntary program from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that assists businesses in saving money and protecting the climate through energy efficiency practices. The pharmaceutical manufacturer used the ENERGY STAR opportunities to identify over $12 million in savings from only five plants. Their corporate energy program increased accountability for energy use, educated employees, and upgraded facilities. This helped to reduce their energy use by 9.4% that year. Even if you are not a large manufacturer, you can still see large energy savings.