You Don’t Need to Spend Thousands to Optimize Your Compressed Air System

There is no denying it, saving compressed air is a process.  This process often involves some type of energy audit or at the very least an evaluation of something going wrong with production and a way to improve it.  Many programs, consultants, and sales reps will devise a solution for the problem.

Often times the solution is to create a more efficient supply side of the compressed air system. The supply side is essentially everything within the compressor room or located in close proximity to the actual air compressor. While optimizing the supply side can amount to savings, many of these solutions and services can involve great expense, or capital expenditure processes.  These processes can often lead to delays and continued waste until the solution is in place.  What if there was a way to lower compressed air usage, save energy, solve some demand issues on the compressed air system and save some money while the capital expenditure process goes through for the larger scale project.

These solutions are a simple call, chat, email or even fax away. Our Application Engineers are fully equipped to help determine what points of your compressed air demand side can be optimized. The process generally starts with our Six Steps To Compressed Air Optimization.

6 Steps from Catalog

Once the points of use are evaluated the Application Engineer can give an engineered solution to provide some relief to the strain on your compressed air supply side.  For instance, an open copper pipe blow off that is commonly seen within production environments can easily be replaced with a Super Air Nozzle on the end of a Stay Set Hose that will still bend and hold position like the copper pipe does while also saving compressed air, reducing noise level, and putting some capacity back into the supply side of the compressed air system.

engineered nozzle blow offs
Engineered solutions (like EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products) are the efficient, quiet, and safe choice.

One of the key parts to the solutions that we offer here at EXAIR is they all ship same day on orders received by 3 PM ET that are shipping within the USA. To top that off the cost is generally hundreds, rather than thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars. Well under any level of a capital expenditure and can generally come in as a maintenance purchase or purchased quickly through the supply cribs.  Then, to take this one step further, when the EXAIR solution shows up within days and gets installed EXAIR offers for you to send in the blow off that was replaced and receive a free report on what level of compressed air savings and performance increases you will be seeing and provide a simple ROI for that blow off (though we would also encourage a comparison before a purchase just so you have additional peace of mind).

This amounts to saving compressed air and understanding how much air is being saved, adding capacity back into your supply side which will reduce strain on the air compressor, give the ability to increase production while the capital expenditure for the end solution of controls and higher efficiency on the supply side is approved to then save even more compressed air and energy.

The point is this, savings and efficiency doesn’t have to involve a capital expenditure, if that is the end game for your project that is great! Let EXAIR provide you a solution that you can have in house by the next business day to save money NOW and then put that savings towards another project. No matter the method, it all starts with a call, chat, email or fax.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

 

Candy Producer Saves $4600 in Compressed Air with EXAIR’s EFC

A few months ago, I took a phone call from a manufacturing engineer who worked at a large candy production facility here in the United States. Extra chocolate was dripping out of the candy molds onto the conveyor belt below.  Within a few hours the belt was dirty enough they would have to stop the line and clean the residual chocolate off the belt. 

The best solution I found was a 72” 316 Stainless Steel Super Air Knife. It worked great when powered at 60 psig inlet pressure. The laminar flow of the Super Air Knife was perfectly suited for this application.  The knife was mounted between the mold and the belt to help solidify and blowoff the excess drips of chocolate. There was one drawback, the Super Air Knife was not needed to blow the belt continuously and the continuous demand was not desirable during peak production.

The simple solution for this was the EXAIR Electronic Flow Control, the EFC minimizes compressed air use by turning off the air when a sensor is triggered. Since there was a 4.5-minute time gap between each mold set this was a great solution. When the photoelectric eye saw a mold, it then told the solenoid valve to open and supply the knife with compressed air for 30 seconds while the mold was open and the excess chocolate would be dripping. See the Savings calculations below;

efcapp

Without using the EFC

(* Using $ 0.25 per 1000 SCFM used)

  • 72” Super Ion Air Knife = 165.6 SCFM @ 60 PSIG
  • 165.6 SCFM x 60 minutes x $ 0.25 / 1000 SCFM = $ 2.48 per hour
  • $ 2.48 per hour x 8 hours = $ 19.84 per 8-hour day
  • $ 19.84 x 5 days = $ 99.20 per work week
  • $ 99.20 per week x 52 weeks =$5,158.40 per work year without the EFC control

 

With the EFC installed (turning the compressed air off for 4 minutes 30 seconds with a 30 second on time = 6 minutes/hour compressed air usage)

  • 165.6 SCFM x 6 minute x $ 0.25 / 1000 SCFM = $ 0.25 per hour
  • $ 0.25 per hour x 8 hours = $ 2.00 per 8-hour day
  • $ 2.00 x 5 days = $ 10.00 per work week
  • $ 10.00 per week x 52 weeks = $520.00 per work year with the EFC control 

$ 5,158.40 per year (w/o EFC) – $ 520.00 per year (w/ EFC) = $4,638.40 projected savings per year by incorporating the EFC.

EFC287x250

This example illustrates, clearly, why choosing the EFC is a good idea. It has the ability to keep compressed air costs to a minimum and saves compressed air for use within other processes around the plant. With this type of compressed air savings, the unit would pay for itself in less than 3 months.

If you would like to see how we might be able to improve your process or provide a solution for valuable savings, please contact one of our Application Engineers.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer
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Video Blog: EXAIR Efficiency Lab

The video below is a brief introduction to the EXAIR Efficiency Lab, a free service provided by EXAIR for customers within the USA and Canada.

If you have a single point blowoff that does not have an engineered nozzle, or if you have a wider format blowoff, manifold or home-made drilled pipe, contact an Application Engineer with EXAIR and let us help you to reduce your energy waste. Following are some examples of product where we have helped to save some serious air and reduced noise levels which heightens employee comfort.

Non-engineered blowoffs

Drilled and soldered copper pipe.

Custom manufactured inefficient pipe blowoff

 

The EXAIR Efficiency Lab

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Energy Rebates and EXAIR Products

In case it goes unnoticed, EXAIR focuses on engineered compressed air point of use products to ensure that our customers are utilizing their costly utility as efficiently as possible.  The main benefits to purchasing EXAIR products are the support you receive from us at EXAIR, the quality of the product, the savings in compressed air, and the increase in safety.  Another added benefit is a large number of utility companies are offering rebates on the purchase of engineered nozzles, just like the Super Air Nozzles that EXAIR offers.

Many energy providers offer these energy rebates for commercial or industrial users.  Here in the Cincinnati area, Duke Energy offers rebates on items such as lighting, air compressors, engineered air nozzles, heaters / dryers for extrusion machines, energy management systems, variable frequency drives, data center equipment, even food service equipment, custom incentives, and many other items.

Duke Energy Rebate
Example of our local energy rebate offering for Engineered Nozzles

For each engineered compressed air nozzle that is installed, in order to meet the rebate requirements they must flow less than or equal to given flow rates in SCFM at 80 psig inlet pressure. The pipe sizes, flow rates, and EXAIR equivalents are shown below.

EXAIR Engineered Air Nozzle Part Number EXAIR Flow Rate @ 80 psig
#1102/#1103 – 1/8 NPT 10 SCFM
#1100/#1101 – 1/4 NPT 14 SCFM
#1108SS-NPT/#1109SS-NPT/#1110SS-NPT
All are 1/8 NPT
2.5, 4.9, 8.3 SCFM
respectively
#1003 – 3/8 NPT 18 SCFM

By just replacing the nozzles the customer saved 2.7 SCFM per nozzle.If we take an example such as the EXAIR Case Study  shown below for 1/4″ copper tube that was being used as an open ended blow off.  The copper tubes were consuming 19.6 SCFM at 100 psig inlet pressure, there were 10 machines with one line per machine operating 40 hours, 52 weeks per year.   The customer retrofitted the open pipes with a model 1100 Super air nozzle and was able to reduce the air consumption by 2.7 SCFM per nozzle.  If they were to purchase these nozzles this year, current list price for a model 1100 Super Air Nozzle is $36.00 USD, then apply for the energy rebate offered by Duke Energy and receive $20.00 per nozzle replaced.  The total savings and return on investment is shown below.

Case Study 1561
EXAIR Model 1100 Super Air Nozzle Replaces Open Copper Pipe Blow Off

10 nozzles x 2.7 SCFM = 27 SCFM  x 60 minutes per hour x 8 hours per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year = 3,369,600 SCF of compressed air saved per year.

3,369,600 / 1,000 SCF x $.25 = $842.40 USD savings in compressed air per year.

Cost Savings per week = $16.20 USD

Total purchase cost is  $36.00 x 10 nozzles = $360.00 USD

Energy Rebate = @20.00 per nozzle x 10 nozzles  = $200.00 USD in rebates.

$360.00 USD purchase price – $200.00 USD energy rebate = $160.00 USD final purchase cost.

Return on investment at a savings of  $16.20 USD per week is

$160.00 / $16.20 = Less than 10 weeks pay back!

By applying for the energy rebate this customer could reduce the ROI of this air savings project from just over 22 weeks (which is still very good) to less than 10 weeks.

If you would like to learn more about whether there are Industrial energy rebates available in your area, contact an Application Engineer and let us know where you are located and who your energy provider is.

We will help you determine the correct engineered solution to save your compressed air as well as help you to apply for eligible energy rebates in your area.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF