Huntapac is a major brand in food processing that grows, cleans and washes vegetable produce for a number of large companies in the UK. Huntapac were concerned about its carbon foot print and wanted also to reduce their maintenance and energy costs. Huntapac contacted Lancashire based air compressor firm: Glaston Compressor Services Limited.
The engineering team from Glaston reviewed Huntapac’s existing compressed air system. Paul Bretherton from Glaston identified an accumulation of faults causing major restrictions in the system. Paul commented
“The compressors were an array of makes and models and the filtration was drastically under sized with incorrectly sized pipe work. The compressor room ambient temperature was well above 21ºC as it had three compressors running constantly in a confined space. The high temperature was causing the compressors to become problematic and the refrigeration dryer was unable to perform to the manufacturer’s specifications.”
Glaston’s changed the compressor and replaced it with two large variable HPC KAESER compressors. The reason for this was two-fold – in case of breakdown and to enable efficient service of the machine as the site was running almost 24 hours a day. The other difficulty was the actual size of the compressor room.
Paul added “We created a simulation of the room using our computer design software. The solution was to mount the receiver, dryer and filtration system on a platform above the two CSD compressors. A hot air energy recovery duct system was added which heated the work shop in winter months and expelled hot air in summer months, thus reducing the ambient temperature in summer months.”
The new highly efficient 55 kW HPC KAESER compressor yields a massive reduction in power costs. The ambient temperature of the compressor room has vastly reduced and the new condensate system removes all waste condensate thus ensuring the customer is complying with waste water regulations.
In addition Huntapac was able to claim towards the cost of the compressor through the ETL (Energy Technology Product List) allowance scheme.For more information on this scheme click here.
