20 Ways to Save Energy

(source: U.S. Dept. of Energy)

Here are twenty steps you can take this year for little or no cost, using in-house expertise. You'll be amazed to discover how some simple changes can cut your energy bills.

Find out how to save energy in all your combustion systems, or focus more specifically on your steam boiler system or process heating system

All Combustion Systems (Read More)

1. Operate furnaces and boilers at or close to design capacity
   
2. Reduce excess air used for combustion
   
3. Clean heat transfer surfaces
   
4. Reduce radiation losses from openings
   
5. Use proper furnace or boiler insulation to reduce wall heat losses
   
6. Adequately insulate air or water-cooled surfaces exposed to the furnace environment and steam lines leaving the boiler
   
7. Install air preheat or other heat recovery equipment

Steam Generation Systems (Read More)

1. Improve water treatment to minimize boiler blowdown
   
2. Optimize deaerator vent rate
   
3. Repair steam leaks
   
4. Minimize vented steam
   
5. Implement effective steam trap maintenance program
   
6. Use high-pressure condensate to make low-pressure steam
   
7. Utilize backpressure turbine instead of pressure-reducing or release valves
   
8. Optimize condensate recovery

Process Heating Systems (Read More)

1. Minimize air leakage into the furnace by sealing openings
   
2. Maintain proper, slightly positive furnace pressure
   
3. Reduce weight of or eliminate material handling fixtures
   
4. Modify the furnace system or use a separate heating system to recover furnace exhaust gas heat
   
5. Recover part of the furnace exhaust heat for use in lower-temperature processes

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Other Energy Savings Tips

(source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

• Higher-performance air filters clean supply air more efficiently, reducing energy consumption in the process.

• Variable-speed drives in recircluation, make-up, and exhaust fan motors use less energy than constant-speed drives.
• High-efficiency motors, fans, and pumps use less energy.
• Lower water flow rates in cooling towers reduce chilled water piping pressure drops and pumping energy usage.
• Separating chiller loops for sensible and latent cooling functions, with correspondingly different supply temperatures and energy inputs, can save energy.
• More efficient process tool components, such as motors, fans, pumps, compressors, and heat exchangers, use less energy directly in operation and indeirectly in generating excess heat that much be removed.
• Light guides and other efficient lighting systems product lower cooling loads, have lower maintenance costs, reduce or eliminate the risk of lamp breakage, and reduce production interruptions for group relamping.
• Increasing the thermal insulation surrounding the furnace maintains the required process temperature with lower energy input. it also reduces the release of heat from this unit and the associated cooling needs.
• Improving the power suplies that convert alternating current to direct current for furnace operation provides modest energy savings.

For more information see: http://ateam.lbl.gov/