Industries

"The Numbers Don’t Lie". It’s a popular saying everyone has heard before, applied to a variety of situations – political statistics, figures backing up an athlete’s performance and budget data.

Thirty percent is a big number. Applied to the above scenarios, it could entail a landslide victory or a hitter gaining entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But just imagine, if the manager of a wastewater treatment facility were to trim 30 percent from their operating costs, he or she might also consider that a landslide victory of their own.

A new cogeneration system installed at the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant by the LOTT (Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, and Thurston County) Clean Water Alliance late last year uses treatment by-products as fuel to generate electricity and heat energy. This renewable energy system, combined with an aeration blower retrofit currently underway at the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant, is expected to save LOTT more than $228,000 per year in utility costs.

Did you know that wastewater contains ten times the energy needed to treat it? Located near Strass im Zillertal, the Strass wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) serves 31 communities in the Achental and Zillertal valleys east of Innsbruck, Austria. It provides wastewater treatment for a population that ranges from approximately 60,000 in the summer to 250,000 during the winter tourist season, and has treatment requirements that include organic and nitrogen removal. An energy-independent facility, the plant produces more electrical energy than it requires for its operation.

A leading soft drink bottling manufacturer’s compressed air needs were threatening to exceed its Michigan plant’s compressed air capacity. Faced with the cost of buying a new compressor, the soft drink bottling manufacturer re-assessed their compressed air use to identify compressor and energy savings opportunities. In the audit, the soft drink bottling manufacturer identified the use of compressed air in a gap transfer as a source of compressed air and energy inefficiency.

This article will examine in detail four of the five acceptable WAGD implementations under NFPA 99, along with some alternative ways they may be implemented. This article will not deal with passive implementations.

A compressed air system assessment saved this building materials manufacturer over $518,000 per year in energy costs, with a simple ROI of 11 months. 

Blower & Vacuum Best Practices interviewed Mr. Sid Van der Meer and Mr. Terry Nickel from Northwest Equipment Ltd in Airdrie, Canada.

This factory currently spends \$735,757 annually on the electricity required to operate the compressed air system at its plant. The group of projects recommended in the system assessment will reduce these energy costs by an estimated \$364,211 (49% of current use). Estimated costs for completing the recommended projects total \$435,800. This figure represents a simple payback period of 14.4 months.

The snack food facility is running with two normally separated compressed air production systems: the main plant system and the nitrogen system.

Over the last several decades, Air Power USA has reviewed many various types of plastic injection molding operations throughout the U.S.