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Core4 Guy
17-02-2008, 06:05 PM
I am new to this forumn and I have joined to learn more about the worlds need for efficiency. I would really like the input of any member that has an opinion on the following questions.

1. How much does energy cost in your area of the world?
2. How much does water cost? Is water savings important?
3. How much does sewage cost? Is sewage reduction important?
4. Are there any compensation packages for reducing your cosumables (energy, water, sewage) in your area?

Please use your area's (countries) units of measure and currency, that way I can learn to convert them...

taz24
17-02-2008, 06:29 PM
I am new to this forumn and I have joined to learn more about the worlds need for efficiency. I would really like the input of any member that has an opinion on the following questions.

1. How much does energy cost in your area of the world?
2. How much does water cost? Is water savings important?
3. How much does sewage cost? Is sewage reduction important?
4. Are there any compensation packages for reducing your cosumables (energy, water, sewage) in your area?

Please use your area's (countries) units of measure and currency, that way I can learn to convert them...


You will struggle to compare like for like because different societies have different infastructures inplace and costing is based on that.

In my part of England I pay

1 Energy Gas and electricity costs about £1200 for my family of four a year.

2 Water costs about £400 a year that includes sewage removal again a family of four.

3 See 2 above.

4 We are expected to recycle as many products as possible and they are removed along with the refuse once a week.
No incentive to recycle yet but soon a small reduction in taxes if recycling is done.

I will add another option

5 Local taxes. (council tax) I pay about £1000 a year to local authority to pay for schools, refuse collection, street maintenance, street lighting, public areas (parks and childrens play grounds) and such like.

taz.

Core4 Guy
17-02-2008, 07:44 PM
Thanks for the reply. I ask these questions because I am very concerned about the ammount of energy use by refrigeration in the world and its only going to increase. My part of the world Napa, CA USA pays .14 cents a kW for energy at industrial facilities, CA also provides rebates at .14 cent per annual kWh saved for projects under the Non Residential Rebate Program. We are somewhat cocerned about water but more about sewage. We pay 3 times the ammount for sewage as we would pay for water at most of my facilities. There arn't any local rebates for water savings.

I hope that every facility owner, technician, and engineer looks at all these issues to improve a facilities cost effectiveness first, but also to improve the enviroment. Thanks

US Iceman
18-02-2008, 12:18 AM
Right now, the utilities are more interested in reducing demand use (kW) because this presents a lot of problems with having adequate capacity on-line duting on-peak periods. In addition to this, the load factor should also be investigated as this shows the use and/or lack of control on the system consuming the energy.

Tesla
18-02-2008, 08:34 AM
Well Core4Guy
it's like banging your head against a brick wall in Ausi - usually the tennant pays utilities bills and the owner pays for maintenance and capitol expenses so its a loose loose situation. The owner wont pay for his tennant to save. I wish more people like you gave a sh?t

Core4 Guy
18-02-2008, 05:24 PM
Tesla, Yeh that would make it difficult. The Aussies usually do everything right, how did this happen. Hey what does energy cost anyways?

Oregon Jim
29-03-2008, 06:35 PM
I will look into energy costs for my work facility when I can, but I would like to make a few comments.

Energy costs have soared over the last few years where I work, resulting in major efforts by our company to reduce usage. Our results have been outstanding. By making some improvements in our steam boilers, we greatly increased the efficiency of the boilers and saved more than $100,000 in annual fuel costs. We have increased our water recovery and reduced water waste where we can, resulting in similar savings. We are in the process of replacing old metal halide or sodium lighting fixtures with new high efficiency florescent fixtures. Many manual light switches are being replaced with motion sensors to automatically turn on and off lights. We have made great progress, all of it in just the last few years, and company-wide, the savings has been totally amazing. The company is even thinking of installing solar panels on the roof. Wonders will never cease!

We are saving big dollars and loads of energy. I love it!!!

Sergei
30-03-2008, 05:22 PM
I will look into energy costs for my work facility when I can, but I would like to make a few comments.

Energy costs have soared over the last few years where I work, resulting in major efforts by our company to reduce usage. Our results have been outstanding. By making some improvements in our steam boilers, we greatly increased the efficiency of the boilers and saved more than $100,000 in annual fuel costs. We have increased our water recovery and reduced water waste where we can, resulting in similar savings. We are in the process of replacing old metal halide or sodium lighting fixtures with new high efficiency florescent fixtures. Many manual light switches are being replaced with motion sensors to automatically turn on and off lights. We have made great progress, all of it in just the last few years, and company-wide, the savings has been totally amazing. The company is even thinking of installing solar panels on the roof. Wonders will never cease!

We are saving big dollars and loads of energy. I love it!!!
What did you do for refrigeration plant?

Oregon Jim
31-03-2008, 02:47 AM
We are still in the planning stage for most improvements in the refrigeration systems at my facility, but we have made a few changes in operations. I will give several examples. First, we adjusted the condenser controls, lowering our head pressure set-point to 100 psi., and we adjusted compressor suction pressure from 10" of vacuum to 5" of vacuum. We have installed better sprinkler nozzles on our condensers to provide better spray patterns across the condenser tubes. In the near future we will have VFD's installed in our cold storage evaporator fans. We are planning to replace a couple of old rotary booster compressors with new screw compressors, and we hope to install VFD's on at least one first and one second stage compressor to eliminate swings in pressure. We are aiming at decreasing our energy consumption by about 20%.

As for me personally and what I do... I began my ammonia career as an operator at my employer's largest plant, operating seven freeze tunnels and a cold storage facility, but after twelve years I accepted a position at a smaller facility. Now I am "the refrigeration department" at my plant. I have a couple of seasonal operators that work for me during our processing seasons, but I am "the man" (great big over-inflated ego!) at my plant (one of several owned by my employer). I operate and repair everything in our system with the exception of welding on pressure vessels. We have certified welders make those repairs. I am trained as the HazMat responder, and I take care of just about everything relating to ammonia and chlorine regulations at my plant, including PSM and emergency response. In short, if it has ammonia in it, it's my responsibility.

US Iceman
31-03-2008, 04:37 AM
We are aiming at decreasing our energy consumption by about 20%.


Why so low?;)

Oregon Jim
01-04-2008, 12:05 PM
Hey Moderator... I posted a note last night on this forum and it is gone this morning. What's the deal?????


On energy cost;

I found that last year my plant paid about $0.072 per Kw and about $.0.78 per therm for natural gas, with an annual bill for both being a bit under $600,000.

As I said before, my plant is small, but as you can see our energy cost is large. We have saved a bunch of money!!!

US Iceman
01-04-2008, 02:24 PM
I don't know what happened to the post. I have had that occur with me before too once in awhile.

On the energy costs; you also need to look at the demand charges for each kW of power. And, it is helpful to understand the estimated energy costs for each duty (refrigeration or boilers). That way when you implement a project you should have an idea of what the impact of the savings would be for that particular duty. And then, you need to verify the savings were actually generated.

On most systems it is fairly easy to obtain a 20% savings by careful evaluation of the control settings. Depending on your system configuration and use there is a lot more money you could save.

At the moment I'm finishing a project where the estimated savings are about 40% for demand (kW) and 50% for energy (kWh). And, I think these are conservative numbers.