Quantum helps wallpaper factory save £27,000 in energy costs28 June 2010

Cheshire-based wall coverings manufacturer Fine Décor reports savings of £27,000 a year in energy costs thanks to the installation of ABB variable speed drives by Quantum Controls.

Greg Roberts, chief engineer and energy manager Fine Décor, says there were several areas of concern he wanted to investigate, mostly around saving energy and reducing the plant's carbon footprint.

One of those was a large fan used to extract heat from one of the production processes. Run direct-on-line, it had no speed control and was extracting too much heat, resulting in both wasted electricity and a need to use more gas to compensate.

Roberts asked Quantum to perform a site survey, which logged energy use data and identified several applications that could be tweaked – and the result was four ABB variable speed drives initially supplied on hire to prove the savings.

"Quantum proposed a package of drives to me and showed the calculated savings and payback we could expect. And based on the carbon dioxide it would be saving, the Carbon Trust offered a loan of £120,000, even though the capital cost was nowhere near this figure," says Roberts.

For the final permanent installation, Quantum Controls installed nine ABB standard drives on six fan applications, saving more than 9,000kWh a week, and yielding an energy cost saving of just over £27,000 a year.

Roberts says payback time at that rate was predicted at just eight months. "We are very happy with the savings made and we may have more applications that can benefit from drives. We would definitely like to work with Quantum Controls again."

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
ABB Ltd
Quantum Controls Ltd

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