Energy savings in the can

Ball regularly reviews opportunities for reducing energy consumption as part of a commitment to reduce the carbon footprint of its beverage cans by 25% by 2020. Identifying its high pressure can cleaners as an area for improvement, it called in Brammer to conduct an audit. Each of the two production lines at Ball’s Rugby site is supplied with hot water by five immersible pumps.

The Brammer team, led by Del Tiwana  who specialises in beverage and packaging manufacturing processes, found that the 10 pumps within the can cleaners were at least 20 years old, providing an opportunity to upgrade to more energy-efficient models. With a run time of 8400h per annum, based on the pumps running 24/7 for 50 weeks of the year, Brammer identified potential energy savings of more than 450,000kWh/yr.

Brammer worked with strategic partner Grundfos pumps to recommend replacements – Grundfos MTRE64 and MTRE45 series pumps – and carry out initial energy monitoring conducted over the course of three visits. The new pumps were installed as part of an integrated pump, motor and variable speed drive package, and were selected on the basis of the warranty and support available within Brammer’s turnkey solution. 

Del Tiwana explains: "Following our assessment and recommendations, our technical engineers moved in to carry out reference point testing to determine the potential energy savings. Two motors were run simultaneously, powering an old pump and replacement model, to check power consumption and establish a baseline for comparison. With the customer satisfied with the projected savings, we went ahead with full installation including managing custom fabrication of mounts and pump optimisation for the application.”

Thanks to a significant reduction in energy usage, the associated cost savings have provided Ball Packaging with a return on investment in only 12 months, with projected savings set to rise beyond £400,000 in the next 10 years. 

John Cosgrove, plant systems manager at Ball Packaging Europe, comments: "Our commitment to reducing energy consumption led us to look in detail at all our equipment, and the opportunity to replace aging pumps within our high pressure can cleaners has resulted in the most significant energy cost saving to date. We were impressed with the thorough up-front audit from Brammer, as well as the comparison testing and custom fabrication the team was able to provide. The installation was quick and caused negligible disruption to our production processes. Ultimately, the fact that we were able to make a dramatic reduction in our energy usage is by far the best outcome of this project, and we are now looking at how we can replicate these results at our other sites.”