Energy consultants TEPM, on behalf of Ray & Sons Electrical and Chromoflo, recently called Adroit Technologies to assist in solving an energy-related problem they were experiencing on some large fans. Brad Campbell, sales engineer at Adroit Technologies said, “I was quite nervous initially as the energy saving claims made by Mitsubishi were fairly aggressive, and I felt that both my and the company’s reputations were at stake. These were large drives and it meant a lot to me to ensure that we were successful.”
Chromoflo ordered two 110 kW variable speed drives to be installed on some extraction fans at the factory. The biggest problem they were having was that the incoming power from the city supply was only rated at 800 A, which meant that due to high starting currents, it was difficult to start the factory, let alone when the power was down and a smaller standby generator had to be used.
The before and after values are summarised in the table.
“The most impressive feature is the percentage reduction in current drawn from the supply, significant power saving with only a small impact on overall performance,” said TEPM’s David Baudains.
These results were without even taking advantage of the patented Optimal Excitation Control (OEC) technology incorporated in most Mitsubishi VSDs. When the drives were then tuned to the motors and run as based on the amount of air the fans were required to deliver for the given process requirements, further savings were realised.
Adcor Fans did an independent verification which found that running the VSDs at 50 Hz yielded a 31% reduction in power for an overall 4% reduction in airflow, while reducing this to 47 Hz whenever possible increased the energy saving to 42% for an overall 5% reduction in airflow.
In terms of return on investment, the annual savings with the plant running eight hours per day, five days per week for 49 weeks of the year was estimated at R70 000 per annum, i.e. a payback of less than one year.
Dave Wibberley, managing director of Adroit Technologies concluded: “Having researched and verified data such as this is extremely valuable to potential users, as it is customer-to-customer research and not just vendor marketing speak. We believe Mitsubishi has the best energy saving and quality product on the market. We have shown it time and time again under both harsh environmental and power conditions.”
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