Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Compressed Air Management Program: A Performance Assessment Approach to Improving Industrial Compressed Air System Operation and Maintenance

Abstract

The Compressed Air Management Program (CAMP) provides Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E's) large industrial customers with measurement-based performance assessments of their compressed air systems. Under this program, the customer's system is inspected and both short-term, high resolution, and longer-term measurements are taken of power and pressure. These data are used in developing a system simulation based on the US DOE's AIRMaster+ computer model. Model results and professional judgment are used to identify a cost-effective strategy for improving the system. Recommendations are provided to the customer along with technical support for implementing these recommendations. After improvements are complete, the performance measurements are repeated so that PG&E and its customers can judge the effectiveness of the recommendations. The program uses a standardized toolkit (all off-the-shelf components) along with software developed exclusively for this application, to accomplish the required measurements and efficiently analyze and reduce the data for use in the AIRMaster+ model.