Electricity and Control December 2023

MEASUREMENT + INSTRUMENTATION

Using the right maintenance tools can deliver energy savings Businesses worldwide face the dual challenge of rising fuel costs and environmental energy taxes; there has never been a more critical time to focus on reducing utility costs. Here, Sanid Usanovic reviews how a German food and beverage plant makes the Fluke ii900 Industrial Acoustic Imager a standard maintenance tool to achieve significant energy savings.

F or the efficient management of plant operations, the critical considerations for the energy manager include product quality, safety, downtime, and, of course, energy use. A production plant in Germany has set itself the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030 (using 2015 as a baseline) and turned to the Plant Energy Manager to help deliver that target. One way of achieving the goal is to reduce energy use. How can the plant energy manager accomplish this without impacting product quality, safety or downtime? Reducing environmental impact Manufacturing firms worldwide are reviewing the efficiency of operations to reduce costs and drive down their environ mental impact. Led by sustainability officers and support ed by energy managers, efforts to lower energy usage are helping to decrease the environmental impact of produc tion and contribute to global and local efforts to counteract climate change. In 2011, the International Organisation for Standardi sation (ISO) introduced its voluntary standard for the de sign, implementation and maintenance of an energy man agement system. Developed by a technical committee, ISO 50001, like other ISO standards, is intended to be re alised across various industries and encourages adopters to implement a ‘Plan, Do, Check, Act’ framework for energy management. Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the drive for more sustainable industrial operations to reduce the effects of climate change has accelerated. In taking a stand against climate change and commit ting to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the bottling plant in Germany in focus in this article identified reducing

The maintenance teams at the plant play a key role in ensuring efficient operations. the plant’s indirect emissions from energy use as one cru cial element of the programme. Specifically, this considers the emissions resulting from the generation of the electricity purchased by the company from the utility provider. One area that came under review was how to tackle the energy wasted through leaks in compressed air sys tems. The Carbon Trust estimates that industry in the UK uses over 10 TWh of electricity to produce compressed air, making it the direct root cause of over five million tonnes of CO 2 emissions a year (The Carbon Trust: Compressed air – business opportunities ). Compressed air as a resource Approximately 90% of all companies use compressed air in some aspect of their operations, such that it is sometimes referred to as the fourth utility. However, compressed air is often generated on site, unlike other energy sources such as gas, electricity or water typically supplied to the site by an external utility provider. The manufacturing companies using compressed air are responsible for its efficient pro duction and distribution. Although many people may see compressed air as being as free as the air around them, due to the nature of the process, a significant proportion of the energy a compressor uses to compress the air is lost as heat. It is an energy-intensive process, and the environmental impact that electricity production can have makes it anything but free. Once produced, compressed air is used to automate processes, package products, provide motive power, or generate other gases on site. Clearly, the waste of this expensive resource needs to be minimised. The priority is to set up a leak reporting and

The bottling plant is using the Fluke ii900 to locate compressed air leaks in the Clean-in-Place system, the syrup maker, and other areas.

20 Electricity + Control DECEMBER 2023