A New
Compressor Management System Dramatically Cuts Energy Consumption for
Compressed Air Production
The
market surveys related to the Motor Challenger initiative revealed that, in
Italy, as much as 12 TWh electricity are absorbed to supply power to
compressors in the industry. This represents 11% of total energy consumption
for production processes on a national scale.
This means that, although air is free of charge, the operation of compressors has a significant impact on costs and environment.
For this reason, for a few years now, Ingersoll Rand, a leader in the production of centrifugal compressors, has created a team focused on the reduction of power consumption. A pool of experts with different experience and professional skills, led by the Italian Controls Manager Fiorenzo De Vecchi, formed the Ace Team (Ace is the acronym for “Affidabilità Controllo Energia,” i.e. “Energy Control Reliability”). As De Vecchi explains, “Compressed air is essential for several production processes and, for this reason, the reduction of consumption and, most of all, waste is a goal that cannot be separated from the necessity to guarantee the reliability of our equipment.” Leveraging new technology and constant innovation investments by Ingersoll Rand, this equipment is at the leading edge of innovation. However, mechanical innovation is relatively slow and, as a result, performance seems basically equivalent to the standards offered by the best competitors on the market.
This means that, although air is free of charge, the operation of compressors has a significant impact on costs and environment.
For this reason, for a few years now, Ingersoll Rand, a leader in the production of centrifugal compressors, has created a team focused on the reduction of power consumption. A pool of experts with different experience and professional skills, led by the Italian Controls Manager Fiorenzo De Vecchi, formed the Ace Team (Ace is the acronym for “Affidabilità Controllo Energia,” i.e. “Energy Control Reliability”). As De Vecchi explains, “Compressed air is essential for several production processes and, for this reason, the reduction of consumption and, most of all, waste is a goal that cannot be separated from the necessity to guarantee the reliability of our equipment.” Leveraging new technology and constant innovation investments by Ingersoll Rand, this equipment is at the leading edge of innovation. However, mechanical innovation is relatively slow and, as a result, performance seems basically equivalent to the standards offered by the best competitors on the market.
Changing Platform
From
an energy perspective, the real differentiator is the capacity to optimize equipment
management. As a matter of fact, compressors are designed to deliver their top
efficiency within a narrow operating range. The reason is that, in order to
produce compressed air while avoiding any waste, the equipment should run at a
specific number of revolutions, so that temperature within each compression
stage is kept at optimal levels.
That’s
why, in the first project stage, the team focused their effort on the creation
of a software that could manage proprietary equipment. The initiative was
immediately appreciated by customers who, in view of achieved savings, asked
the company’s engineers to control also some compressors from competitive
vendors. Following this request, Ingersoll Rand’s specialists had to evaluate
the opportunity of further investments in the development of their software.
Besides offering adequate levels of reliability, the solution would have to
interact with only partially known equipment. It was a risky option, with no
fixed warranty or time schedule, so they decided to consider the deployment of
a standard market platform. “During this analysis,” explains Luca Ferrari,
Energy Air Audit Specialist, “a customer asked to integrate our control system
with the Wonderware solution they were already using to manage their manufacturing
process. As a result, we could appreciate the benefits offered by an
established platform, featuring high reliability and well known across the
industrial domain.” Such features contributed to the successful implementation
by the Ace team, to such an extent that, as De Vecchi explains, “If you add up
all the savings of last year, the solutions we have developed on the US
corporation’s platform have enabled our customers to avoid the release of
15,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Such quantity, translated into money,
is the equivalent of 1.6 million Euros saved.”
Blown Away by Savings
These
results reached the ears of Franco Maretoli, plant manager at the Noyfil site
in Andalo Valtellino, a Radici Group company specializing in the production of
polyester fiber for the textile industry. In the past decade, this industry has
been suffering hard from the competition of markets that can offer similar
products at much lower prices than Italian goods.
Nevertheless,
Noyfil has minimized negative effects by focusing on product quality and on the
capacity to reduce costs. Maretoli asked the support of Ingersoll Rand’s specialist
engineers to optimize compressed air consumption. Market instability, combined
with highly variable compressed air demand along six production lines, actually
translated into low efficiency in the use of available compressors. To meet
production requirements, while preventing possible shortages in compressed air
supply to the industrial
process, more air than necessary was produced, with a consequent waste of
energy. From Measurement to Saving The monitoring activity carried out by
Ingersoll Rand engineers supported by Wonderware
indicated that the available machinery was oversized for Noyfil’s actual needs.
This caused useless energy waste, which could be reduced only by means of a
“buffer” reservoir for the temporary storage of compressed air in excess.
However, this solution required significant investments, as well as the
installation of a potentially hazardous structure and, consequently, the need
to adopt a number of measures to guarantee the safety of operators. Ferrari
suggested installing just one small compressor that could handle all variations
in energy requirements. But the real turning point was the innovative motor
management system based on Wonderware InTouch HMI, a solution that guarantees
high reliability with over 300,000 installations worldwide. All of this with
the additional benefit that operators can check the operation and status of all
machines
in real time. A standard market platform also allows the system to interact
with compressors from competitive vendors, as it uses the Modbus communication
protocol. The control software can constantly monitor over 90 parameters of the
compressors, including temperature, oil pressure, and vibration intensity in
each stage, cooling fluid flows and power absorption. At the same time, by communicating
with the PLCs of each production line, the software collects compressed air
demand and, in some cases, also predicts future requirements. Based on these
values, compressors are turned on and off individually with a smart management
process based on real needs. All information is then transferred via Ethernet
to the maintenance manager’s office, who can view the situation in real time
without having to check each piece of equipment personally. In this way, all
compressors in the factory are managed automatically and their operation is no
longer entrusted to the decisions of each operator, but to a system designed to
avoid any waste. Such capability leverages the computing power of InTouch,
which can convert energy consumption into economic values, so that the user can
easily verify that consumption levels match the reference values.
With
a huge number of information delivered through the advanced graphical interface
of InTouch, interpretation is highly intuitive for line operators. Based on
detailed knowledge of their own compressors, Ingersoll Rand engineers have also
developed a system that can analyze the trend of several parameters, including
vibration and temperature. This set of information helps identify possible
failure signals in advance, thus implementing real predictive maintenance. Such
capability is further enhanced by the possibility to transfer data to remote
stations. So, De Vecchi and his team can check the proper operation of each
compressor even at a distance of several hundred kilometers from the
installation. Also, a diagnostic expert can view the real status of equipment
remotely. On top of this, an alarm system can identify and signal any kind of
issue, from conspicuous events down to very peculiar details only known to
industry experts. “A significant example,” De Vecchi says, “is that we can even
detect dirt deposits on an air filter. Such condition can cause efficiency
losses by as much as 10%.” “Few months after the installation of the
supervisory system,” Maretoli states,“ we have achieved approximately 8,000
Euro/month of savings on the energy bill compared to the previous year. This
means a ROI of just nine months». And finally, with this solution we have full
visibility of the compressor room, and operators no longer have to rush to
start or stop a compressor.”
Summary of results
- Compressors are turned on and off individually, using a smart management process based on actual requirements
- Real-time visualization of the status of installed equipment, eliminating the need for individual monitoring
- Monitoring of critical parameters to identify possible failure signals in advance, thus implementing real predictive maintenance
- Few months after the installation of the supervisory system, the end customer achieved approximately 8,000 Euro/ month of savings on the energy bill compared to the previous year.
- Source: Industry OEM-Original Equipment Manufacturers Ingersoll Rand
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