Optimizing Energy Efficiency of Rotating Equipment with Simon Jagers

It is my pleasure to welcome back Simon Jagers, one of the founders of Samotics, an industrial analytics company that helps clients improve reliability and sustainability, particularly of their rotating equipment.

In this episode we covered:

Why is energy efficiency so important for organizations?
What can we do to address these problems with energy efficiency?
What do we do about all these energy wasting assets?

Why is energy efficient so important for organizations?

Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. The fact that there is global warming and that if it exceeds, we’re basically in for lots of challenges when it comes to the ecology; with it comes to nature with drops with food. We really need to work together on multiple forms to make sure that we achieve those sustainability goals. We need to start focusing on shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. We need to mitigate effects of CO2 emissions, but we also need to start using energy more efficiently, reduce energy consumption and use AC motors more efficiently.

What can we do to address these problems with energy efficiency?

If we can reduce energy consumption, we also reduce the problems we have in the other fields. If we use less energy, we need to make less energy. If we use less energy, we create less CO2. The second part really is that if we use energy consumption, most technologies to do that effectively are already available and typically somewhat lower costs than other alternatives here. It really makes sense to start to focus on using energy more efficiently, particularly when it comes to electrical motors pumps, fans conveyors, and more so that’s really where we can start improving the efficiency of those rotating assets.

You mentioned that 70 to 80% of the energy in our facility is typically used for powering pumps, fans motors, rotating equipment. How are motors wasting this energy?

When we look at our own data, first, we see that a typical piece of rotating equipment, let’s say a pump is, can be 20 to 40% more energy efficiently. Mechanical or electrical issues contribute to energy losses. You need to detect these early. Another way to look at it is how they’re being used sometimes inefficiently. Detecting that your conveyor is running without moving a load is another example of how sometimes effort are being used inefficiently. And a third reason for energy losses is over under sizing.

What do we do about all these energy wasting assets?

It starts with understanding where energy is used on an asset level. If we want to take mitigating actions against energy waste, it really starts by monitoring energy consumption and performance of the same assets. And so that gives you sort of a high-level insight as to where you probably can save energy. It starts by understanding where you are consuming energy and where energy is wasted. Electrical signature analysis really is an excellent tool to do this. It measures high frequency current and voltages waves. The key to unlocking energy savings is looking at the electrical patterns or by extension current and voltage sign waves.

If you have a mechanical problem in your pump, you want to detect that early. By measuring those ripples and analyzing them, you can understand what the problem is, and you can estimate the remaining useful lifetime. The second category is how that assets are sometimes used inefficiently. If you look at that same centrifugal pump you probably want to understand how it operates relative to the best efficiency point. The third element is if you look at over under sizing, it comes from that same data. If you monitor that pump for an extended period, you will learn to understand what the maximum sort of required power is and the lowest required power.

As we continue to get more insights from the technology, and as this technology evolves, what are we expecting to see in the future?

We are going to get much more specific energy saving opportunities. What we’ll continue to see is invest in technologies that help us to become more sustainable, that help us to become more energy efficient. The most focus has been on the big Systems. How we make energy will shift towards sustainable renewable energy sources. We will also see investments in monitoring technologies moving forward. On the software side, we’re seeing that these insights are being integrated into backend systems. It becomes easier to extract data from various sources.

Eruditio Links:

Simon Jagers Links:

Simon Jagers LinkedIn
Samotics
Past Episodes with Simon
Simonjager@samotics.com
Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins: It's the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest way to address the crisis Article

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