Get the details on how much those compressed air system leaks are costing you—and a lot more—through a free, federally funded energy assessment for your small to mid-sized manufacturing plant.
Got any idea what those leaks in your plant’s compressed air system are costing you?
Ted Kozman does. “When you’ve got a leak loud enough that you can hear it when you walk by and you can feel the air blowing when you put your hand on it, it’s probably costing you around $800 a year,” says Kozman, director, Industrial Assessment Center, and an engineering professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL). “If you can feel it but you can’t hear it, it’s about $500,” he adds. “And if you can’t hear it or feel it, but you’re able to measure it with a leak detector, it’s probably costing you about $300 a year.”
The numbers will vary depending on air compressor size, number of work shifts and other factors, notes Kozman, but they are good rules of thumb for manufacturers based in Louisiana. In other parts of the country, air loss costs could be higher. And given that compressed air leaks are a common problem found in plants throughout the United States, the numbers can add up quickly. Even at a small to mid-size manufacturing facility, an aggressive, plant-wide program to repair compressed air leaks can often produce annual savings of $10,000 to $100,000 or more.
Free expertise
Kozman’s ready knowledge of the topic is an example of the kind of energy expertise that is available at no charge to qualifying small and medium-sized manufacturers through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) program. The ULL IAC is one of 26 such Centers operated by universities around the country.
Under the IAC program—funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program—teams of engineering faculty and students from the Centers conduct energy audits or industrial assessments and provide recommendations to manufacturers to help them identify opportunities to improve productivity, reduce waste and save energy.
More than 11,000 assessments have been conducted since 1976, when the program got its start as a Department of Commerce initiative, says Michael Muller, director of the Center for Advanced Energy Systems, at Rutgers University, which serves as DOE field manager for the IAC program. IAC recommendations implemented by industry have averaged about $55,000 in annual savings for each manufacturer, producing an average one-year payback on their investments, Muller says.
Any small or medium-sized manufacturer that falls within Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes 2000 to 3999 and is located within 150 miles of a host campus can request a no-cost, IAC assessment. To qualify, a plant must have annual sales of less than $100 million, employ fewer than 500 at the plant site, have energy bills of $100,000 to $2 million per year, and have no professional in-house staff to perform the assessment.
In most cases, assessments are completed in a single day. “Because we’re a program that uses students, a lot of these companies are a little skeptical, as to whether this is a real service or a field trip for the kiddies,” Muller notes. “But in the large majority of cases, by the end of day, these guys are saying, ‘Wow, there really are some good ideas coming out of this.’”
One manufacturer that has been pleased with its IAC assessment results is the Ville Platte, La., plant of Cooper Cameron Valves, a manufacturer of oil field valves. The plant hosted a one-day assessment conducted by a faculty and student team from the ULL IAC in September 2001, says Plant Manager Rickie Duty. Following the assessment, the IAC team came up with a list of recommendations, which, if implemented at an estimated cost of $358,000, would produce estimated savings totaling $795,000 per year.
Due to capital restraints, Cooper Cameron did not implement all of the recommendations exactly as suggested, says Duty. But according to figures supplied by the company, the plant did make changes based on the IAC guidance that have produced annual energy and waste disposal savings of $214,000 per year. The list included a compressed air leak repair program, saving $30,000 per year; an operator awareness program for turning off machines during periods of non-use, for annual savings of $50,000; and the purchase of an incinerator for burning wood waste, saving an additional $77,000 per year. Even small items such as installation of photo sensor lighting and controls in warehouse and storage areas added annual savings of $7,400.
Savings surprises
One major benefit of a plant assessment is the expertise and focus on energy issues that the IAC team brings to the effort, says Duty. “We may have thought about some of these things on our own, but we haven’t necessarily done the calculations needed to follow through on the ideas,” he notes. The IAC team comes equipped with current energy costs data, specialized software tools and faculty experience gained from earlier visits. Within 60 days following the assessment, the team delivers a detailed report to the plant, including specific enumerated recommendations, each with projected expenditures and savings. “We were surprised at the documented recommended savings numbers, and how much they added up to,” Duty says.
Based on the success of the original Ville Platte plant assessment, another Cooper Cameron Valves plant in Little Rock, Ark., has also since undergone an IAC assessment. Further the Ville Platte plant also requested and received a second IAC assessment, performed last December, which resulted in a dozen additional energy saving recommendations. “They came up with 12 good ideas,” says Terald Vidrine, facility engineer at the plant. “And we’re studying right now which ones we can implement.”
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