Reduce your energy bill with minimum effort

The UK’s rising energy prices show no sign of easing, at least in the short term. The best way to reduce your energy bills is simply to use less energy. With costs spiralling, sometimes the easiest way to save energy is to look a little closer to home, and to help, ABB has introduced its Energy Snapshot service.

A drive running a fan or pump system can halve the amount of energy that it uses. Extrapolate this across multiple applications with dozens or even hundreds of motors in an installed base, and the energy savings can quickly accumulate, resulting in significantly lower electricity bills. With the latest generation of SynRM motor and drive package solutions, these energy savings can be even greater.

One of the challenges in finding energy efficiency opportunities in a typical plant is knowing where to find them. Legacy equipment that has for years operated without incident can be easy to overlook. However, in the current climate of high energy costs and squeezed margins, looking at existing assets can hold the key to unlocking new pockets of energy efficiency that can quickly accumulate into significant savings. ABB has introduced a free service which makes finding these applications, and saving money on them, far easier.

The ABB Energy Snapshot service involves an engineer from ABB or an approved ABB Value Provider carrying out an in-person visit over the course of half a day. During the visit, the engineer will identify the motor-driven applications that offer the greatest opportunity to cut energy use in the shortest possible time.

Using data collected during the assessment, a comprehensive report is provided containing all the information you need to build a compelling business justification for making your motor-driven assets more energy efficient, more reliable and cheaper to operate. This report provides key stakeholders with the key information they need to inform purchasing decisions.

The report is tailored specifically to each facility, incorporating actual plant values and data gathered during the inspection to recommend appropriate solutions, and provide compelling justification for them. This includes projected CAPEX and OPEX estimates, savings forecasts, payback points and energy/CO2 saved over time, illustrated using charts and graphs as well as raw figures.

Purchasing decisions aren’t always just made by one person, which is why with the ABB Energy Snapshot, each stakeholder in the decision-making process receives a bespoke report that speaks the same language they do, from financial controllers to maintenance and energy managers. It provides key personnel with the information and clarity they need to realise the energy saving potential on motor-driven applications, and dramatically cut costs.

The Energy Snapshot also provides detailed analysis of a plant’s existing installed base, providing additional insight into its condition, with recommendations on potential future upgrade pathways, as well as identifying applications that would not significantly benefit from an upgrade. By analysing existing plant assets, the Energy Snapshot report can be used to help control operational costs and prolong equipment lifetime. The report also provides specific equipment recommendations with detailed technical notes, including existing unused or underused drive functions, and any additional installation considerations (for example, Life Cycle Assessment services) relevant to applications analysed.

An action plan is prepared highlighting the applications that offer the greatest/fastest opportunity to reduce energy consumption. Figures will normally be translated into annual savings, and there will be detailed recommendations for suitable drives or motors. To further prove the results, ABB can arrange a hire drive to let you put the recommendations to the test. Once new equipment is fitted, energy consumption is tracked to enable comparison of both predicted and actual savings.

Click here to register your interest in the Energy Snapshot service.