Steel Plant Fan and Pump Energy Saving Retrofit

Fans and pumps were sized for maximum campaign and then throttled by dampers and valves for most of the year. Energy was billed per tonne of product with no sub-metering, so nobody could say where the loss was.

01Installed temporary metering on each drive to record load profile, operating hours and throttling position over four weeks.
02Compared the actual operating point with the pump and fan curves to identify oversized equipment and recirculation losses.
03Selected medium voltage drives with bypass cabinets so production can continue if a drive trips.
04Added closed loop control on furnace pressure and cooling water return temperature instead of manual damper setting.
05Repeated the metering after commissioning and issued a verification report with the calculation method.

Twelve drives were commissioned across induced draft fans, circulating water pumps and a compressor. Power consumption at the same production rate dropped in line with the reduced speed operation, verified by the before and after metering protocol. The exact saving rate depends on the load profile of each machine.