Energy Saving – The Tech Driver

June 22, 2011 5:42 am

Since energy saving is one of the biggest technology drivers, CS Instruments intends to gain maximum out of it
 
Could you brief us about your business?
Compressed air is an essential energy resource within industries. In Germany, about 60,000 plants use compressed air. Although compressed air is one of the most expensive energy resources to be used, industries use up to 40 per cent more than required.
 
The Fraunhofer Institut, Karlsruhe states that many compressed air systems are outdated and can’t feed the daily demand or are in need of a maintenance program. Leak curring programs alone could save up to € 200 million in electricity costs and contribute with a CO2 reduction of 1.7 million tons per year.
 
Beside these problems many companies have a problem with condensation in the compressed air lines. To avoid these problems, driers mainly refrigeration driers and desiccant driers are used. In case of refrigeration dryers the compressed air is cooled down to typically 2 to 5° C, the excessive water drops out and is discharged via a condensate drain. Adsorption dryers extract the humidity from the compressed air by means of adsorption. In this case the desiccant adsorbs the moisture. Depending on the degree of saturation the desiccant is regenerated in a desorption phase.However, also the most reliable refrigeration dryers may no longer be able to drain the condensate due to overload, due to defective or polluted condensate drains. A frequent phenomenon in case of adsorption dryers is the ‘flooding’ of the desiccant which leads to a complete exchange of the desiccant.
 
What are the main target sectors for your business?
The main target sectors comprises of divisions that produce air and gas. Nearly every company which has a production facility and uses compressed air is our potential customer. That means automotive manufacturers such as BMW, VW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, etc. use our instruments to have an optimal compressed air line.
 
Pharmaceutical companies, electronic companies, hospitals, chemical companies in need of good quality compressed air and gas are also our potential clients.
 
Additionally, CS Instruments is one of the leading companies for measuring instruments for compressed air and gas. Therefore, nearly all the big companies dealing with compressors, filters, driers are our potential clients.
 
What are the different measures taken by the company to reduce energy?
Since the price for electrical energy is growing year by year nearly every company wants to reduce energy costs. Since compressed air is really expensive there are a lot of efforts in the companies to save energy by reducing leakages. So in every company there is one responsible engineer for this topic.
 
Technological advancements and CS Instruments?
Starting from single flow or dew point measurement nowadays the customer wants to have all kind of measuring values stored in a database on a server. Independent clients can have these values on each PC in the company with alarms sent by e-mail or SMS to the mobile phone. These are some of the technological advancements. Right now CS Instruments is raising a new company building in CS South to have more space for new engineers, for new calibration facilities. Since energy saving will be one of the biggest technology drivers we want to make sure that we are one of the leading companies in that area.
 
What are your views on the status of OEMs?
Since CS Instruments is one of the leading companies for measuring instruments in the compressed air and gas field there are so-called big OEMs which sell the instruments under their brand-name.
 
According to you, what are the main challenges the industry is facing?
The challenge of CS Instruments is to develop new instruments with new features for this special market. The aim of CS Instruments is to develop the right instrument for the user because CS Instruments was so successful over the years that we do not copy or develop any me-too products.
 
Could you tell us about the recent initiatives undertaken by you?
The Hanover Fair 2011 was one of our biggest success stories. More than 500 companies visited our booth. The DS 500 – intelligent chart recorder for compressed air and gases was the absolute highlight for this customer group.
 
Beside this our seminar ‘Energy saving in compressed air lines’ was held in the beginning of May this year. There was limited number of participants and the seminar was fully booked.