Manufacturers Best Practice Guide
Compressed Air: Basics
Compressed air is one of the most common industrial equipment systems, and is found in about 70% of all U.S. manufacturing facilities. The energy needed to operate compressed air systems costs manufacturers approximately $1.5 billion each year. Maintaining an efficient compressed air system is a direct route to major industrial energy savings. According to the State of Utah's industrial energy site; "If compressed air systems in use in the industrial sector were upgraded to take advantage of all cost-effective efficiency measures, it is estimated that 163 trillion Btus of energy would be saved at the source (power station) annually, resulting in a user cost savings of $777 million per year (at 5 cents per kWh)."
Compressed air systems vary widely in size, ranging from as little as 5 horsepower (HP) to more than 50,000 HP. These systems also vary in application, powering pneumatic tools, applied directly to materials and as an aid to other industrial processes such as combustion and oxidation.
Although compressed air is critical to manufacturing, these systems are some of the most inefficient in terms of energy use. In fact, 8 horsepower of electricity is used to create 1 horsepower of compressed air. Roughly 80% to 90% of the electricity used to operate compressed air systems is converted to low-temperature waste heat. This lost energy can quickly add up, annually costing individual manufacturers as much as double the purchase and installation cost of the entire system.
Energy efficiency measures can achieve significant energy savings, as high as 50% in some cases. Due to high operating costs, improvements to the energy efficiency of compressed air systems, as well as users' habits, often have a short payback time. There is now a great deal of information, as well as rebates and incentives, focused around improving equipment and practices related to compressed air.