Maintenance and energy costs cut

"The customer’s compressors were getting old and they were looking to replace them,” said Carl Sharpe, national sales manager, BOGE. "Three companies were asked to come in and pitch, data log the machines and present solutions and BOGE came up with a comprehensive solution that met the customer’s needs.”

When BOGE arrived there was no pipe work ring main, and large pressure drops across the system. Compressors were uncontrolled, with five compressors inefficiently located in three different compressor rooms. Above all, these old compressors were subject to frequent breakdowns, causing high maintenance costs, and significant amounts of unloaded running. What the customer wanted was to be able to fund the replacement of old equipment with the energy savings of the new equipment and that is what the BOGE solution achieved.

For example, BOGE showed that a desiccant dryer in the system was purging air unnecessarily - one of many inefficiencies recognised and addressed by BOGE’s full system audit. "We offer not just compressors but a full system audit so we look for all opportunities to introduce efficiencies downstream,” Carl explained. "We could see that the desiccant dryer to improve air quality wasn’t needed; it was set up so half the air was going through it and half the air wasn’t so the air that had been improved in quality was then mixing with air that hadn’t been treated, making the desiccant dryer process a waste of time.”

The complete BOGE solution comprised two S50-3 compressors, one SLF51-3 (Run/Standby/Top-up Set up), an Airtelligence Plus Controller, RefrigerantDryer, Filters and Receiver Tank, Pipe work and electrical installation, plus BOGE Bestcair 5 year Service and Warranty. The BOGEairtelligence plus, allows users to control any combination of up to six fixed speeds or frequency controlled compressors in a combined compressor system. The base load switch control enables the user to synchronise the operation of all compressors in the system, thus reducing service costs and simultaneously increasing compressed air supply. "The solution was extremely efficient because the compressors themselves are extremely efficient. However efficiency was further advanced because we eliminated off load running with the controller.” said Carl Sharpe.