Tag: compressed air cost

The Cost of Compressed Air Leaks

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment

As margins get tighter and the cost of manufacturing climbs, industries are looking for ways to be more economical.  A big focus is on the compressed air system.  Compressed air is considered to be the “fourth utility” behind gas, water, and electricity.  Air compressors are necessary to run pneumatic systems, but they are the least efficient of the utilities.  For every $1.00 that is put into making compressed air, you only get roughly 5¢ of work from it.  So, it is very important to use this utility as efficiently as possible. 

One of the biggest problems affecting compressed air systems is leaks.  That quiet hissing sound coming from the pipelines is costing your company a lot of money.  A study was conducted by a university to determine the percentage of air leaks in a typical manufacturing plant.  In a poorly maintained system, they found that 30% of the compressor’s capacity is lost through air leaks on average.  Just to let you know, the majority of companies do not have a leak prevention program, so they will fall into the “poorly maintained” category.  To put a dollar value on it, a leak that you cannot physically hear can cost you as much as $130 per year.  That is just for one inaudible leak in hundreds of feet of compressed air lines.  The chart below shows the amount of money that can be wasted by the size of the hole for larger leaks. Unlike a hydraulic system, compressed air is clean, so leaks will not be visible at the source.  You have to find them by other means. 

Most leaks occur where you have threaded fittings, connections, hoses, and pneumatic components like valves, regulators, and drains.  The Optimization products that EXAIR offers are designed to help optimize your compressed air system, and the most effective way is to find and stop leaks.  We have the Ultrasonic Leak Detectors to find inaudible air leaks and the Digital Flowmeters to check your system and find leak rates.  With both products included in a leak prevention program, you will be able to keep your compressed air system running optimally and reduce the cost caused by wasting compressed air. 

EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector: When a leak occurs, it emits an ultrasonic noise caused by turbulence.  These ultrasonic noises can be at a frequency which is inaudible for human hearing.  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector, model 9207, can pick up these frequencies and make the leaks audible.  With a signal strength number and bar graph level display, you can find very minute leaks.  It comes with two attachments; the parabola to locate leaks up to 20 feet away, and the tube attachment to define the exact location in the pipeline.  Once you find a leak, it can be marked for fixing.  This simple-to-use instrument can save you a lot of money and headaches. 

EXAIR Digital Flowmeter: With the Digital Flowmeters, you can continuously watch for waste.  Air leaks can occur at any time within any section of your pneumatic system.  You can do regular checks by isolating sections with the Digital Flowmeter and watching for a flow reading.  Another way to monitor your system would be to compare the results over time.  With the Digital Flowmeters, we have a couple of options for recording the air flow data.  We have the USB Datalogger for setting certain time increments to record the air flows.  Once the information is recorded, you can connect the USB to your computer, and with downloadable software, you can view the information and export it into an Excel spreadsheet.  With the digital flowmeters, we also offer wireless capability.  You can have multiple flow meters that can communicate with your computers to continuously log and record the flow information via one gateway.  Once the flow information starts trending upward for the same process, you can use the Ultrasonic Leak Detector to find the leak.  It can also serve as a preventive measure if a pneumatic system is starting to fail.

Leaks in compressed air will cost you in terms of performance, compressor life, and electrical costs.  It is important to have a leak prevention program to check for leaks periodically, as they can happen at any time.  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector and the Digital Flowmeters will help you accomplish this and optimize your compressed air system.  If you need more information, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.  Once you find and fix all your leaks, you can then focus on improving the efficiency of your blow-off devices with EXAIR products.  It will save you even more money. 

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Photo: Soap bubble and pencils by Carola68.  Pixabay license. 

Compressed Air Efficiency Results in Better Business!

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Time and time again we write about how compressed air is considered the fourth utility in a manufacturing setting. Compressed air is a great resource to use, however it needs to be used responsibly!

How you use it in your business is important, for a couple of key considerations:

The Cost of Compressed Air

Compressed air isn’t free.  Heck, it isn’t even cheap.  According to a Tip Sheet on the U.S. Department of Energy’s website, some companies estimate the cost of generation at $0.18 – $0.30 per 1,000 cubic feet of air.  A typical industrial air compressor will make 4-5 Standard Cubic Feet per Minute per horsepower.  Let’s be generous and assume that our 100HP compressor puts out 500 SCFM and is fully loaded 85% of the time over two shifts per day, five days a week:

500 SCFM X $0.18/1,000 SCF X 60 min/hr X 16 hr/day X 5 days/week X 52 weeks/year =

$22,464.00 estimated annual compressed air cost

So to minimize the compressed air use and the over all generation costs there are six easy steps to follow!

  1. Measure: the air consumption You must create a baseline to understand your demand requirements. How can you measure your improvements if you do not understand your total demand or baseline? Installing an EXAIR Flow Meter to your main air lines will help identify the amount of compressed air demand you have and help identify areas of concern.
  2. Find and fix leaks in the system: The repair of compressed air leaks is one of easiest ways to gain energy savings. In most cases all you need is a keen sense of hearing to locate a leak. Once a you have confirmed a leak then the make the necessary repairs. Harder to find leaks may require tools such as EXAIR’s Ultrasonic Leak Detector. This is a hand held high quality instrument that can be used to locate costly air leaks.
  3. Upgrade your blow off, cooling and drying operations: Updating your compressed air process tooling can save you energy and help you comply with OSHA noise and safety regulations. An example would be to replace old blow off or open pipe systems with EXAIR Safety Air Nozzles. Replacing open copper tubes or pipes can amount up to 80% air savings. You achieve lower sound levels and significant energy savings.
  4. Turn off the compressed air when it isn’t in use: It sounds obvious but how many times has an operator left for a break or lunch and doesn’t shut off the compressed air for his/her station? The minutes add up to a significant amount of time annually meaning there is opportunity for energy savings. The use of solenoid valves will help but EXAIR’s Electronic Flow Control (EFC) will dramatically reduce compressed air costs with the use of a photoelectric sensor and timing control.
  5. Use intermediate storage of compressed air near the point of use: The use of storage receivers can improve your overall system efficiency in a number of ways. For example, using a main air receiver at the compressor room can make load/unload compressor control more efficient. Localizing receiver tanks such as EXAIR’s 9500-60 sixty gallon receiver tank by the point of use for a high demand process will stabilize the demand fluctuations allowing a more fluid operation.
  6. Control the air pressure at the point of use to minimize air consumption: The use of pressure regulators will resolve this issue. Using regulators you can control the amount of air being processed at each point of use. EXAIR offers different sized pressure regulators depending upon your air line and process requirements. Regulating the compressed air to the minimum amount required and will reduce your overall demand resulting in annual savings and a payback schedule.

Health & Safety

Injuries and illnesses can be big expenses for business as well. Inefficient use of compressed air can be downright unsafe.  Open ended blow offs present serious hazards, if dead-ended…the pressurized (energized) flow can break the skin and cause a deadly air embolism.  Even some air nozzles that can’t be dead ended (see examples of cross-drilled nozzles on right) cause a different safety hazard, hearing loss due to noise exposure.  This is another case where EXAIR can help.  Not only are our Intelligent Compressed Air Products fully OSHA compliant in regard to dead end pressure, their efficient design also makes them much quieter than other devices.

Efficient use of compressed air can make a big difference in the workplace – not only to your financial bottom line, but to everyone’s safety, health, and livelihood.  If you’d like to find out more about how EXAIR can help, give me a call.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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How to Calculate ROI (Return on Investment)

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

You may have asked…why should I switch over to an engineered compressed air product if my system already works? Or…How can your products be much different?

Manufacturing has always been an advocate for cost savings, where they even have job positions solely focused on cost savings. Return on Investment (ROI) is a metric they look toward to help make good decisions for cost savings.  The term is used to determine the financial benefits associated with the use of more efficient products or processes compared to what you are currently using. This is like looking at your homes heating costs and then changing out to energy efficient windows and better insulation. The upfront cost might be high but the amount of money you will save over time is worth it.

ROI Calculation

How is ROI calculated? It is very simple to calculate out the potential savings of using an EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Product. We have easy to use calculators on our websites Resources where filling in a few blanks will result in an ROI when switching to a EXAIR product! Here they Are, Calculators.

I’ll go ahead and break down the simple ROI calculations for replacing open blow offs with an EXAIR Super Air Nozzle:

  • ¼” Copper Pipe consumes 33 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as CP)
  • A Model 1100 ¼” Super Air Nozzle can be used to replace and only uses 14 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as EP)

Calculation:

(CP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for Copper Pipe  

(33) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 4,118,400 SCF

(EP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for EXAIR Product  

               (14) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 1,747,200 SCF

Air Savings:

SCF used per year for Copper Pipe – SCF used per year for EXAIR Product = SCF Savings

               4,118,400 SCF – 1,747,200 SCF = 2,371,200 SCF in savings

If you know the facilities cost to generate 1,000 SCF of compressed air you can calculate out how much this will save. If not, you can use $0.25 to generate 1,000 SCF which is the value used by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate costs.

Yearly Savings:

                (SCF Saved) * (Cost / 1000 SCF) = Yearly Savings

                                (2,371,200 SCF) * ($0.25 / 1000 SCF) = $592.80 annual Savings

With the simple investment of $42 (as of date published) you can calculate out the time it will take to pay off the unit.

Time Until payoff:

                (Yearly Savings) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = Daily Savings

                                ($592.80/year) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = $2.28 per day

                (Cost of EXAIR Unit) / (Daily Savings) = Days until product has been paid off

                                ($42) / ($2.28/day) = 17.9 days  

As you can see it doesn’t have to take long for the nozzle to pay for itself, and then continue to contribute toward your bottom line. 

If you have any questions about compressed air systems or want more information on any of EXAIR’s products, give us a call, we have a team of Application Engineers ready to answer your questions and recommend a solution for your applications.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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The Impressive ROI of an Engineered Air Nozzle

Published on by codybiehleLeave a comment

You may have asked…why should I switch over to an engineered air nozzle if my system already works? Or…How can air nozzles be much different?

Manufacturing has always been an advocate for cost savings, where they even have job positions solely focused on cost savings. Return on Investment (ROI) is a metric they look toward to help make good decisions for cost savings.  The term is used to determine the financial benefits associated with the use of more efficient products or processes compared to what you are currently using. This is like looking at your homes heating costs and then changing out to energy efficient windows and better insulation. The upfront cost might be high but the amount of money you will save over time is worth it.

Model 1100 Super Air Nozzles can save compressed air dollars and increase safety

But how is ROI calculated? It is very simple to calculate out your potential savings of using one of EXAIR’s Intelligent Engineered Compressed Air Products. If you would rather not do the calculations out yourself then we can do it for you by sending the item in question to our Efficiency Lab Testing. The Efficiency Lab Testing is a free service that we offer to show you the possible savings by switching to one of our products.

The following is a simple ROI  calculation for replacing open blowoffs with an EXAIR Super Air Nozzle:

  • ¼” Copper Pipe consumes 33 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as CP)
  • A Model 1100 ¼” Super Air Nozzle can be used to replace and only uses 14 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as EP)

Calculation:

(CP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for Copper Pipe  

(33) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 4,118,400 SCF

(EP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for EXAIR Product  

               (14) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 1,747,200 SCF

Air Savings:

SCF used per year for Copper Pipe – SCF used per year for EXAIR Product = SCF Savings

               4,118,400 SCF – 1,747,200 SCF = 2,371,200 SCF in savings

If you know the facilities cost to generate 1,000 SCF of compressed air you can calculate out how much this will cost you would save. If not, you can us $0.25 to generate 1,000 SCF which is the value used by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate costs.

Yearly Savings:

                (SCF Saved) * (Cost / 1000 SCF) = Yearly Savings

                                (2,371,200 SCF) * ($0.25 / 1000 SCF) = $592.80 annual Savings

With the simple investment of $42 (as of date published) you can calculate out the time it will take to pay off the unit.

Time Until payoff:

                (Yearly Savings) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = Daily Savings

                                ($592.80/year) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = $2.28 per day

                (Cost of EXAIR Unit) / (Daily Savings) = Days until product has been paid off

                                ($42) / ($2.28/day) = 17.9 days  

As you can see it doesn’t have to take long for the nozzle to pay for itself, and then continue to contribute toward your bottom line. 

If you have any questions about compressed air systems or want more information on any of EXAIR’s products, give us a call, we have a team of Application Engineers ready to answer your questions and recommend a solution for your applications.

Cody Biehle
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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