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Electrical Power Savings in Pump and Compressor Networks via Load Management
Abstract
Large industrial plants commonly use multiple
parallel units in pump and compressor networks for
improved reliability. Sometimes, installed equipment
capacity can far exceed actual requirements. This
excess capacity can be translated into energy cost
savings through “optimum load management”. A
key decision parameter in determining the operating
policy is the Trigger Point at which to switch from N
units to N+1, and vice versa. The Trigger Point is
defined as the actual flow rate at which the switching
is made to the “ideal” (generally maximum) flow rate
at which the switching should be made.
At the plant under study, the implicit Trigger
Point was generally found to be around 85%,
probably because this made it easy to have a smooth
transition during the switching operation. A number
of pumping and compression networks were analyzed
to determine what the potential savings would be if
this trigger point were increased to 90 or 95%. The
savings potential was found to range from 0 to 23%,
with an average of 4.4%. Our study demonstrated
that by tightening up operating policies to make sure
that the minimum number of machines is being run,
significant cost savings are possible with zero capital
investment, and negligible sacrifice in operating
flexibility or reliability.
This paper describes the methodology used, as
well as representative results from our study.
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Citation
Kumana, J. D.; Aseeri, A. S. (2005). Electrical Power Savings in Pump and Compressor Networks via Load Management. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /5632.