Conservation Saving inCompressed air System : A Case Study of Kenana Sugar Factory

Abstract

Delivering compressed air to manufacturing facility in an expensive operation. Delivery requires costly equipment that consumes significant amounts of electricity and need frequent maintenance. In spite of this, many facilities have no idea how much the compressed air system cost on an annual basis, or how much money they could save by improving the performance of these systems. Compressed air is very important in Kenana sugar factory because used widely in all its sections. We used compressed air to control steam and juice valves, centrifugal machines, bagging machines and temperatures control ……ect. The fluctuation of the compressed air pressure effect on production level, also made shut down for the plant, need 12 hours for restart. In this research, its discussed how to conserve energy in air compressors, such as, reduce fluctuation in pressure by arrested air leakage, calculate the amount of it and energy savings, by using the formulas and matlab program for compute energy savings when hole diameter is changed. Also changed standard motor by high efficiency one, compare between them, and calculate energy saving. Otherwise, reduced pressure setting and calculate energy saving and how much money saving due to that. In Kenana sugar factory this study was partially applied by reducing pressure setting in mill cultch compressors from 8.5bar to 7.5bar. That is, reducing the pressure setting will reduce the energy consumed by compressor by 6.6 percent and saving 3421.44 SDG/yr. Also treated drop in compressed air pressure by arrested air leakage in distribution lines in sugar bagging section. That the factory will save 12114.78 KWH/yr of electricity worth 3270.99SDG a year when this air leak fixed. This is a substantial a mount of air for a single leak whose equivalent diameter is 3mm.