Cabycal Supplies a 5.5-Stage Double Tunnel to Reduce Electricity Consumption

Date: 05/08/2020
Categories: Success stories

Cabycal has developed and installed in a household appliance company a double treatment tunnel which saves 80% in electricity consumption.

Cabycal provided a 5.5-stage double tunnel treatment which saves 80% in electricity consumption to a leading household appliance company in Western Europe. With this new equipment, the company wanted to improve one of its production plants, replacing the old tunnel for pre-treatment by spraying metal parts with a new one with about 2,000 nozzles. The new tunnel has been digitally integrated with the existing coating line. Also, the electrical installation, the control panel and the automation have been updated.

Reduction of electricity consumption

The new double tunnel can enable only one of its lines and record several parameters (such as water circuits pressure, motors temperature, hydraulic pumps vibration), in order to optimise the water and light consumption and generate the minimum environmental impact possible. In fact, it allows the company to reduce its electricity consumption by around 80%, which represents an economic saving of over 130,000 euros per year.

This new energy-saving tunnel is the result of a detailed study carried out by the Cabycal electrical and automation engineering department. It studied several factors such as the reduction of installed power, the use of frequency variators in all motors, the elimination of 90% of reactive power and the operation of new pumps on demand of working pressure with an integrated PID function. What led to a drastic reduction in the electricity consumption of the new treatment tunnel was the drop in electricity. Now, the new tunnel has an installed electrical power of 72.6 kW compared to the 329.8 kW of the old one.

Moreover, by using frequency inverters, energy saving is achieved thanks to the improvement in the efficiency of the pump or the fan it manages. Reactive energy is eliminated by 90% and the optimization of the consumption in the pumps increases, since only the power necessary to reach the levels of work demanded in each treatment process is used. In addition to energy savings, inverters contribute the production process as:

  • they eliminate water hammer and vibrations in the pipeline;
  • they maintain a constant pressure in the pipeline.