How can compressed air efficiency be improved?

Efficient energy use helps to control production costs and reduce negative environmental impact. For example, measuring compressor air flow helps control utility costs.

At multiple locations, meter flow helps to provide data that may be used to balance energy sources and supply points.

In addition, these air meters can detect leaks in compressed air piping and other unusual changes in consumption. In addition, these air flow meters help prioritize energy-saving actions.

Communicating key performance indicators to plant personnel can help increase personnel awareness of efficient practices.

Up to 20% of a plant's total energy budget is spent on the compressed air system.

These systems can cause high leakage rates, high start-up and shut-down times and other problems leading to losses.

By measuring compressed air flow, you can identify areas of excessive use and better manage the overall flow of the compressed air system.

Flow meters are used in compressed air systems to provide flow measurement together with pressure and temperature measurement.

The number of points of flow measurement should be appropriate for the size and usage of the system (in most cases, the more points of measurement, the easier is the air management.)

For a compressed air system, it is best to have multiple flow measurements. Compressor, main supply, and branch line flow meters can tell you if leaks are present in the system and if you are wasting energy.

A bottling plant in southern Europe manufactures, packages and ships bottles of natural mineral water. Its compressed air consumption increased rapidly, raising operational costs and increasing the risk of breakdowns and downtime of its pneumatic equipment. This consumption was monitored using orifice plate flow meters. Engineers found that these traditional flow meters created a permanently high pressure loss in the compressed air system.

The Fuji Electric team recommended removing the orifice plate flowmeters and installing ultrasonic flow instruments: five to monitor output of each of the five compressors, and one to measure flow on the main header

These 6 points of flow measurement allowed operators to identify increased usage and to detect system leaks early without unnecessary pressure loss caused by orifice plates.

In addition to greatly reducing system pressure loss, the installation of no-pressure-loss FWD air ultrasonic flow meters at this plant improved the overall efficiency of the compressed air production system by 15%. These innovative compressed air metering devices have saved the company €52,000 per year in electricity costs.