The baler uses a motor-driven pump to compress hydraulic fluid. This originally ran at a fixed speed. When hydraulic pressure reached the set point, excess fluid was diverted through a pressure relief valve. This excess fluid represented wasted energy that had not resulted in any useful work.

Smurfit Kappa and ABB Drives Alliance member Inverter Drive Systems (IDS) monitored energy use and found power consumption to be 11.1kW. The baler ran for 6336 hours and, at an energy cost of 8p/kWh, this gave a total running cost of £5626.

IDS installed a 30kW ABB general purpose drive, ACS550, and a pressure transducer. The drive gives the pressure and flow needed without opening the relief valve and wasting pressure in the fluid. Power consumption was measured again and shown to be 5.6kW. This gave a reduced energy cost of £2838 a year.

As well as energy savings, there has also been a reduction in noise from the application and the motor now also operates at a lower temperature.