When considering the purchase of a new driying system it is important to consider the new techniques that are 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:

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.