There are several techniques available to improve the energy efficiency of your drying system as detailed below:

This section will provide detailed information for your system, based upon the options you choose by, advising you of:

• capital investment requirement
• cost savings and returns
• carbon savings that will be made by every new technique that is employed.

Currently we can offer the following:

Please click on any of these links for further details or scroll down the page.

The potential techniques are as follows:

CORRECT DRIER OPERATION:

It is essential that you operate the driers in accordance with the procedures laid out in the drier instruction manual. These can obtained direct from our head office. Please visit http://www.alvanblanch.co.uk/manuals

If the drier is incorrectly set up (eg with incorrect airflow, bed depth or bed speed, or little or no recirculation) then efficiencies can be reduced by as much as 20%-50%. In addition poor performance can affect the product quality significantly by increasing spoilage losses (for separate advice on reducing spoilage losses in grain visit www.alvanblanch.co.uk/grainmanagment)

DRIER SERVICING:

Regular servicing of your drier is absolutely critical to saving energy and can achieve dramatic effects at minimal cost.

Examples of common problems include worn or blocked burner nozzles, blocked louvers, incorrect burner adjustment or trace chain adjustment. These can combine to cause a significant loss of efficiency (maybe up to 20% efficiency loss) and a reduction in drier output (Any decrease in output will cause an increase in spoilage losses. For separate advice on reducing spoilage losses in grain visit: www.alvanblanch.co.uk/grainmanagment)

A full service of your drier by one of our qualified service engineers is very low cost, and will get instant efficiency gains. Please contact our service department to book a service. service@alvanblanch.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1666 577333.

PRESSURE JET BURNER CONVERSION:

Driers that were manufactured prior to 1993 were manufactured with Urquhart type burners. These can now be fitted with pressure jet type burners. The new type of pressure jet burners work on a different principle that is more fuel-efficient. These could improve your drier fuel consumption and carbon savings by up to 20%. In addition to this the electronic automation and full safety safeguards that are included mean that labour requirements are significantly reduced. Please contact us to check whether your drier is suitable for conversion. You can download more details from http://www.alvanblanch.co.uk/pjb-amc

AUTOMATIC MOISTURE CONTROL:

Driers that were manufactured prior to 1993 were either manufactured without automatic moisture control or fitted with the Ashe Control type of system. Whilst some of these Ashe control systems are still operational we are unable to support them as a product. We can now offer for all our driers a system that measures the outgoing temperature of the air as it leaves the product, which is directly proportional to the outgoing moisture content, and uses this information to target the drier output to the required level. This significantly reduces under or over drying, thus saving fuel and improving quality, as well as reducing labour and increasing quality. This system has been well proven over the past 15 years and has shown that drier fuel consumption and carbon savings have improved by 3-5%. You can download more details from http://www.alvanblanch.co.uk/pjb-amc

BIODIESEL BURNERS:

All our driers with pressure jet burners can be easily altered (at minimal cost) to allow for the burning of bio-diesel. The financial viability of using biodiesel depends upon the price and availability of bio-diesel in comparison to the traditional fuel being used, and the legislation enforced in the country of operation. However certain “green” or “carbon saving” schemes will require this type of fuel to be used. There will be significant carbon savings with this system. Once altered a bio diesel burner can still be run on standard mineral diesel.

KEROSENE BURNERS:

All of our pressure jet burners can be converted to run on kerosene as well as diesel, without any loss of performance or affecting the life of the fuel pumps. This conversion cost is very low.

Many customers are finding that they can buy kerosene at a lower cost than diesel, resulting in a direct fuel cost saving of 10%.

ALTERNATIVE LIQUID FUELS:

A range of burners is available to burn almost any liquid fuel or flammable liquid (e.g. vegetable oil, glycerine, RFO, heavy oil etc). Different products have different properties and different calorific values that require different pre-treatments and ignition conditions.

BIOMASS BURNERS:

All of our driers have the potential to be heated using biomass as the main fuel in addition to the existing fuel being used. The conversion cost is currently very high, but for high usage customer’s paybacks can be achieved within 2 years. Most biomass burning systems work best when operating on a continuous basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The actual design of the system will depend upon the type of fuel being used and the range of products being dried.

DRIER INSULATION:

To reduce heat losses all Alvan Blanch driers can be insulated to reduce heat loss through the sidewalls. Using our insulation simulation model we can estimate the amount of energy savings that can be achieved. All insulation can be site fitted on the drier, either internally or externally depending upon the options chosen.

It is quite possible to achieve energy savings of 5% or more.

HEAT RECOVERY FROM ELECTRICAL GENERATING SETS(CHP):

Depending upon the electricity price and availability it is likely that you can generate your electricity for a similar price to that available from you electricity supply company. However the main advantage with this system is that you can use all the available waste heat from the engine radiator and from the exhaust to heat your drier.

POWER FACTOR CORRECTION/ELECTRICAL INVERTERS:

To save electrical energy your drier can have the addition of power factor correction or the use of inverters to increase the electrical efficiency by up to 20%. This results in direct cost and carbon savings of up to 20%.

It is also possible that these can be supported by interest free loans from the Carbon Trust for UK based customers. See www.carbontrust.co.uk

EFF1 MOTORS:

The use of high efficiency motors (classed as EFF1) will increase the efficiency of any fully loaded motor (such as the fan motors) by 5-10%, giving a direct saving in electricity and carbon usage.

This is compared to a price increase of 25% on standard motor prices. This may make the efficiency gains more applicable on new drying systems.

Within certain criteria using these motors in the UK can provide climate change levy exemption and enhanced capital allowances.

DRIER AUTOMATION AND MONITORING:

A complete range of industrial PC and SCADA systems are available to enable on-line management information to be provided on your drying process. This will enable all your drier settings, capacities, throughputs, fuel consumptions, carbon emissions etc to be monitored and controlled on-line in real time. All the information can be accessed remotely via the Internet and in real time. This enables the drier to be set up in a way that optimizes efficiency and performance with minimal attendance by senior management on site.