Optimising fresh air valves in the crystallisers as part of Energy plan Mouscron production site
Optimising heat extraction in the crystallisers
Excess environmental heat avoidance by installing air extraction vents to outside environment avoiding ventilation needs. Finding and fixing this problem both has an economical (financial savings) and an ecological (energy savings) effect.
Crystallisers: function and technology
The Sioen spinning mill in Mouscron (Belgium) has two crystallisers that dry the pellets and bring them to the required temperature in order to bring them to the desired properties. The number of operating hours per crystalliser is 6 000 hours.
The crystallisation takes place by blowing heated air at 170 °C through the pellets. The pellets are set in motion by means of a stirrer.
Problem: Air extraction of crystallizers overheats production building
A fixed percentage of air is removed and replaced by fresh air. This takes place through a fixed valve. The excess heat was retained in the building requiring ventilation cooling with outside air. Ventilation was performed with 2 ventilator units using 53MWh/year of electricity
Solutions
There are many possible ways to remediate:
- Placement of sensors, especially for measuring relative humidity
- Provide valve control based on in situ measured values
- Limiting the flow of imported fresh air (reducing the amount of imported fresh air also reduces the amount of energy needed to heat it)
- Direct air extraction to the outside was enabled through the installation of ventilation shafts requiring no active ventilators. Thus enabling us to deactivate the 2 ventilator units cooling the production building.
Impact
In 2017, we’ve successfully implemented our own engineered solution.
Impact
| Electricity | 52 948kWh energy savings |
| Emissions | 26 590 kgCO₂ reduction |
| Investments | 5 000 EUR |