Introduction of the company

Chrome ear, S.L. company, whose main activity is the treatment and coating of metals, is one of the companies selected to participate in the European project of the agenda 2020 H, us-Metal, by conducting an energy audit in its facilities.

Context

In this company of about 25 workers, already energy efficiency measures had been undertaken during the past years, such as replacement of part of the lighting by Led technology and substitution of process by more efficient equipment.

Actions and benefits

The energy audit, has allowed to propose various cost-saving measures, identifying for each of them the amount of the investments and the return on investment period.

Actions such as to continue with the change of technology in lighting, hose protection pipes, installing variable speed drives or adapt new technologies in rectifiers, with return periods of between 1.5 and 6 years, make this enterprise to improve its efficiency reducing consumption and therefore their energy bill. This improvement in energy efficiency makes it more respectful with the environment, less polluting and simultaneously more competitive, producing the same product at lower price to reduce the associated energy costs."

After the energy audit, the company has carried out the implementation of several energy saving measures. Some of them were included in the audit and others have been detected by the company itself.

100% of the industrial plant’s lighting has been replaced by LED technology, and in offices those of highest usage (50%). In addition, a speed drive has been installed on an exhaust motor so that its adjustment, adapted to the needs of the process, results in a lower power consumption. Another measure implemented is the change of several equipment that directly take part of the production, current rectifiers, by others of high frequency with superior returns, which motivates a lower energy consumption. Electricity savings have been 7% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Additionally, tests have been carried out stopping the boiler from producing hot water for processing in non-productive periods. These stops represent a significant saving in the consumption of natural gas, however, and due to technical problems, a more thorough study of the application of this measure is being carried out. Thermal energy savings has been 6% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Overall, the primary energy saving has been 6,3% over the same period of the previous year.