Wallnäs saves 87,000 kWh despite having 30% higher production
With the help of DAZOQ's energy monitoring at the machine level, Wallnäs has succeeded in producing more with less energy.
CHALLENGES & GOALS
The high energy costs in winter 2022 were an important reason why Wallnäs chose to implement DAZOQ Energy Intelligence (EI) and began to measure their electricity consumption mainly on their dryers, which account for 40% of their total energy use. "The reason why we chose DAZOQ EI is because it is web-based, i.e. it can be accessed from anywhere, and the system seemed very easy to understand!” - Benny Svensson.
For Wallnäs, it is important that every decision is based on facts and careful analysis, and partly they wanted a receipt of what happens when you experiment and screw down your machines to better understand and lower the manufacturing cost.
ACTIONS
Benni is responsible for quality and product, and drives continuous improvements in production. No wonder then that he also became responsible for energy efficiency. Together with their dryer operator Micke, they worked experimentally to find the perfect balance between wind speed, heat and drying time to optimize their timber drying.
"The biggest waste is when you run a dryer more than necessary! The sum of how much energy is used to dry a package of wood is static, the rest is about how much fire you make for the crows."
When it comes to airspeed, power consumption is inversely proportional. If you want to get twice as high air speed, you have to plug in four times as much electricity. But it also means that a very small reduction in air speed results in a very large saving in kWh. But the further into the wooden planks you get, the lower the wind speed becomes, and if it is too low, it will not carry away the moisture to a sufficient extent. Then there will be an uneven drying process where either the planks on the sides are overdried, which destroys the wood, or you get a lot in the middle that you have to dry again.
DAZOQ EI has made it possible for Wallnäs to get direct feedback on the changes made in the drying program, where they can see how much a small change in wind speed can save in kW and kWh. To ensure quality, they dried the same kind of wood in two identical drying chambers, where they optimized one based on electricity consumption, while the wood in the other dryer served as a reference point. "If you go down to 3.5-3m/s, it starts to drag a bit, so you want a speed of about 4m/s."
RESULT
By turning down the wipers' fan speed by 8%, Wallnäs has succeeded in reducing the fans' power output by approximately 25%. From 96 kW at full power, it now runs at 72 kW in the drying phase.
Benni used the tool the most during the winter of 2022, when electricity prices hit the roof. Wallnäs was extra vulnerable in that they pay for spot prices, at the same time they could use this to their advantage when they controlled the machines based on the electricity price. "It's a trade-off between high electricity prices and longer production times, but if you plan production well, it can lead to big savings." During the winter of 2022, by adapting drying programs and better planning of production, Wallnäs has increased energy efficiency and saved 87,000 kWh compared to the previous year, despite having 30% higher production.
But it didn't end there: After the successful experiments, careful analyzes and evaluations of results and quality, they have come up with new, more energy-efficient settings for their drying programs, which will continue to help them save both kW and kWh.
"By connecting to DAZOQ EI, we have gained a completely new perspective on what can be done to get actual results. The next step will be to integrate the energy data into our logistics system, so that we can gain an even better understanding of how much kWh we use per dryer batch. With this data, we can begin to investigate how different packages differ and what this may be due to. At the same time, we can automatically obtain kWh and thus CO2 per cubic meter.” - Benny Svensson.
DAZOQ helps companies increase their energy efficiency and through real-time machine-level energy monitoring. Through effective communication of savings potential, we can together contribute to a more cost-effective, resource-efficient and energy-efficient future. Contact us and we'll gladly tell you more.