Compressed air: saving and electrifying

Compressed air is ‘expensive energy’, especially if an installation has a lot of leaks. However, companies often pay little attention to compressed air as an expense and source of CO2 emissions. From a finance and CSR perspective, this means that they’re missing opportunities. Grinding disc manufacturer Saint-Gobain Abrasives took up the gauntlet and had itsme perform an ultrasonic test. This resulted in an overview of leaks and areas of potential savings. The company has already fixed most of the leaks and is now, once again with itsme, looking into electrifying certain drives. That will mean less wear, but moreover reduced costs, since electricity is cheaper than air.

Saint-Gobain Abrasives in Eibergen – formerly Flexovit, which lives on as a brand name – uses a lot of compressed air in the production of grinding discs. As maintenance leader/engineer Patrick Banning can attest, that inevitably means air leaks. “When you walk around the factory, you will hear a hissing in some places.” But there are always also inaudible leaks, and altogether that will cause a considerable air loss. The compressors then have to unnecessarily generate more compressed air to compensate, and therefore use more energy than would be required with a (practically) leak-free installation. More energy means more costs and more CO2 emissions. Financial advantages and corporate social responsibility (CSR) therefore go hand in hand when addressing problems with leakages.
 

Findings and recommendations

“As head of the technical service, I have been working with itsme, which has a big contract with Saint Gobain, for a number of years,” says Banning. “If I’m faced with an issue, I can always take it to them: how we should address it, what is the best solution. We had not done anything about compressed air for a while, so it seemed wise to look into this in consultation with itsme. We had recently upgraded the compressors, and with the datalogging on them we can properly monitor our consumption, so I already had an impression of the possible losses.”

“The customer also receives an overview of the possible energy savings”
 

itsme uses ultrasonic measuring equipment to detect leaks, says technical advisor Cees Rademaker. “This measurement method can detect and give a value to sounds, even those that are inaudible to us; this measurement is converted into air loss. We approach this professionally and provide the customer with a comprehensive report. In addition to our findings, provided with photos of the problem areas, there are also recommendations, along with a quotation for the components that need to be replaced. Finally, the customer receives an overview of the energy savings that can be achieved by fixing the leaks.”
 

Materials and drives

Last autumn, itsme conducted a survey at Saint Gobain Abrasives, and Banning was not surprised by the findings. “I had indeed expected it, going off what I heard around the factory and the fact that some components were so outdated that they absolutely had to be replaced, so it was clearly worth getting things started. We have ordered the necessary materials from itsme and in the meantime started fixing the leaks as we go along. In most cases, we included that as part of the regular maintenance, in others we had to shut down machines separately. This summer we hope to have the most part of it ready. According to itsme’s estimate, this will provide us with €28,000 annually in energy cost savings.”

“It was clearly worth getting things started”

However, the compressed air issue doesn’t finish there, says Banning. “Together with itsme, we are now also looking at whether we can replace pneumatic cylinder drives with electric ones, because their energy consumption is cheaper than for air. In addition, we currently have a lot of wear and tear. Operators can regulate the pneumatics themselves, or more precisely, deregulate them, by setting the cylinders so fast that they strike the dampers. We are not able to make standard pneumatic cylinders start up or slow down nicely, and we are shocked by the wear we have on the dampers as a result. For electric drives, we can set a more controllable motion with a good ramp-up and ramp-down. We will do that without the operators being able to get to the settings.” 
 

Less wear, more products

For the research into the electrification of drives, itsme is once again the partner, says Banning. “They will do this in collaboration with Festo, so we don’t have to worry about it. For us, itsme is the point of contact for the entire concept, including programming servo and step motors.” Banning does not yet have a hard schedule for this project. “This year we’re starting with a prototype on one machine. Because we make grinding discs here, we work in an abrasive environment, which is why many cylinders don’t last long in our factory. We will therefore run the prototype for one year, and if the wear is acceptable, we will roll out.” That will require some machines to be converted, explains Rademaker. “It will then have several advantages for the client, who is no longer dependent on compressed air for these machines and therefore has the possibility of optimising the movement, allowing them to make more products in the same amount of time.”

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