Blow-off Air

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 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.

Relatively few people realize that for a variety of industrial manufacturing applications, from air knife drying to simple blow-off nozzles, the use of high pressure compressed air that bleeds into the atmosphere represents a significant waste of energy.