PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2016

COMPRESSORS 17 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 05/16 www.petpla.net COMPRESSORS Efficient high pressure production at San Pellegrino´s Castrocielo plant Up to 80% energy savings Statement by Werner Hoffmann (Ing. grad.), Technology Center / Project Engineering, KHS Corpoplast GmbH, answering our question “What would your ideal compressor look like?” The ideal compressor When a compressor supplier advertises low energy consumption, they always refer to a specific operating point of the compressor. This is usually the highest output at a particular pres- sure. This approach however does not really help an operator. A customer can produce different products on a blow- moulding machine, with various bottle volumes, blow pressures or production performances, and so different com- pressor outputs become necessary. In these cases, the compressor with the highest air consumption is selected. If a smaller output is required, it will operate intermittently. This means that the idle times during which energy is used but no air is outputted becomes progres- sively larger – a compressor should however run energy-efficiently even under these operating conditions. An ideal compressor for me, would be able to be set to different outputs for which it would run virtually continually with a very small amount of idle time. For this purpose, there are possible solutions such as e.g. “a semi-load set- ting” that is achieved by switching off cylinders or pressure levels. In my view, this is however not yet sufficient. A speed control of a com- pressor would also not be a solution, as a frequency converter is always an electrical component which itself consumes additional electrical energy. Moreover, the compressors often cannot be regulated to the required levels, as a certain minimum compres- sor speed and thus a minimum output must be adhered to. www.khs.com The Spanish high pressure compressors manufacturer ABC Compressors launched its new Horizon PET range in 2015, in which the main technical developments are the combination of the opti- mised design of the horizon- tal-boxer type with double acting compressors and the directly coupled transmis- sion. Its design is intended to improve previous stand- ards by double digit percent- age and to give the best flow/installed power ratio of the market. In a new green field project at Nestlé Waters / San Pellegrino, a compres- sor unit out of the Horizon range was selected for a new mineral water bottle plant in Italy. This compressor range can be upgraded with two energy saving features, with noticeable impact in the energy TCO category and environ- ment care: The Variable Speed Drive (VSD) adapts, by means of a pressure transmitter, the compressor rotational speed to the real high pressure air consumption, maintaining at the same time the required working pressure in the pipe line. This reduces or elimi- nates the compressor idle operation and its wasteful energy consump- tion. On average it saves 20% of the Horizon-2400 in San Pellegrino’s Castrocielo plant: variable speed drive on skid close to the main cabinet and hot water outlets on the top of the coolers