Measurement of compressed air consumption - minimization of energy losses

Energy management system according to DIN EN 16001

Compressed air is used in nearly every production plant. The applications vary from the cleaning of components via the supply of pneumatic control systems and drives up to the transportation of different media. In most cases the used energy for compressed air supply is considerably high. The costs often amount up to 20 % of the operational energy costs. Although compressed air is one of the most expensive sources of energy most of the energy losses of the companies occur in this sector. These losses are mainly caused by the following factors: Disuse of the waste heat Leakages of up to 50% Missing compressor control systems Pressure losses

About 60,000 compressed air plants are installed in Germany. Lots of plants are not adapted to the actual requirements or they need to be repaired. About 1.7 million tons of emissions of carbon dioxide could be saved annually by elimination of leakages. (Source: Fraunhofer Institut, Karlsruhe). So there is a considerable amount of possible energy savings slumbering in lots of enterprises. In order to open this up the waste heat which occurs during compressed air generation should be used for heating rooms or for hot water generation. Furthermore it is important to optimize the control of compressed air stations because this leads to considerable energy savings in any case. Also the rehabilitation of an ailing or no longer suitable compressed air supply can pay off already after a short period of time.

Losses caused by leakages in the piping system lead to extreme costs. This table shows the annual energy costs caused by leakages: Hole diameter mm 1 3 5 10 Air loss at: 6 bar (l/s) 1.2 11.1 30.9 123.8 12 bar (l/s) 1.8 20.8 58.5 235.2 Energy loss at: 6 bar (kWh) 0.3 3.1 8.3 33.0 12 bar (kWh) 1.0 12.7 33.7 132.0 Costs involved at: 6 bar () 144 1,488 3,984 15,840 12 bar () 480 6,096 16,176 63,360

(Source: Druckluft- Effizient, kW x 0.06 x 8000 working hours per year)

Energy resources like electricity, water and oil or gas are usually monitored and therfore the costs are transparent. Water consumption, for example, is measured with consumption meters and a water leak is usually found quickly due to the visibility of the leak. Compressed air leaks on the other hand are often not noticed and can "silently" cause a lot of unnecessary costs, even during production downtime or over the weekend. It is not unusual to have the compressors running continuously in order to establish a constant pressure within the system. In case of compressed air systems which have grown during the years the leakage rate can be between 25 and 35 per cent. They are the busiest consumers of compressed air, working all around 365 days a year. Not included are the hidden costs of producing clean and dry air. Refrigeration and adsorption dryers are producing dry air with high running costs involved. Air, that is then later lost through leaks within the system. At constantly rising energy costs these potential energy savings have to be implemented in order to stay competitive within the market. Only if the consumption of single machines or plants becomes known and transparent for all it is possible to make use of possible savings. When introducing an energy management system according to DIN EN 16001 in the first step all consumers have to be recorded. So the user obtains a survey on the single consumptions. Only this transparency enables a targeted action and a saving of energy. For compressed air systems this means in the first step to detect leakages and to remove them. Especially for the complete monitoring and consumption analysis of compressor stations and compressed air networks CS Instruments has developed the new intelligent chart recorder DS 500. The big difference to ordinary paperless chart recorders reveals in the easy initiation and evaluation of the measured data. Besides the recording of the measured data of optional CS sensors like e. g. consumption sensors, pressure dew point sensors, pressure sensors, differential pressure sensors, absolute pressure sensors and temperature sensors DS 500 also offers the recording of all types of third-party sensors like PT100, PT1000, 0/4..20 mA, 0-1/10 V, pulse, RS 485 Modbus and so on. 2

The big difference to ordinarey chart recorders is the recording and evaluation of all customary consumptions sensors optionally as daily/weekly/monthly report at the push of a button. Counters have no longer to be read-out individually and transferred manually into a list like in the past. The customer receives an evaluation of all energy costs at the push of a button. This considerably simplifies the energy management according to DIN EN 16001. Leakages can be detected easily and reliably. So the minimum value of an idle day corresponds with the leakage value. If all consumers are switched off during the weekend, the holidays or in case of a production downtime the ninimum value corresponds with the leakage. In theory the compressed air consumption should drop towards zero during the idle period. However, in practice leakages of up to 25 or even 35% are usual. If the minimum values are continuously increasing over the years this is a clear sign that the leakage rate grows. Additionally to the consumption indication in m/h, min/min, l/s and so on the software also determines the total costs after entering the costs in per m. Consumption analysis including statistics at the push of a button Apart from the compressed air also all other energy costs like electricity, water, vapour and so on can be recorded in this evaluation. This creates a transparency. So all energy and consumption meters for compressed air, gases, water, electricity, heat quantities, vapour and so on can be recorded and evaluated. The customer gets the costs in uro. On the big 7 colour screen with touch panel all information are visible at a glance.

By means of the CS Soft Network all data are evaluated online on the companys server via Ethernet. The software stores all data in a SQL databank on the server. Besides the consumption analysis which can be obtained optionally as daily/weekly/monthly report alarms can be sent in case of threshold exceedings by e-mail and SMS. The measured data can be obtained all over the world via the webserver.
Author: Dipl. Eng. (FH) Wolfgang Blessing, Managing Director CS Instruments GmbH CS Instruments GmbH Zindelsteiner Strae 15 78052 Villingen-Schwenningen/GERMANY Phone + 49 (0)7705 97899-0 Fax + 49 (0)7705 97899-20 E-Mail: info@cs-instrum ents.com Internet: www.cs-instrum ents.com