Why Is Your Factory Paying Too Much For Electricity, And What Do The Fans Have To Do With It?

Running large factories is often a matter of serious concern for a lot of businesses, especially since they involve a lot of high expenses. This is why factory owners are always looking to find new and better ways to minimize their operating costs. Some of the ways they achieve this goal are by focusing on production efficiency, raw materials, or labour expenses. However, one of the main forms of serious expenses comes in the form of electricity. Rising energy bills create a major dent in the company’s finances, especially when paid for month after month. The thing is that most company owners normalize this by thinking that it is an acceptable form of expense. Unbeknownst to them, the rising bills are often caused by the industrial fans that they use for managing their production needs.

A lot of business owners assume that lighting systems, heavy machinery, and office equipment are the largest energy consumers within a factory. The truth is that industrial ventilation and cooling systems often amount to about 30% of total electricity usage in an industrial facility. It means that the industrial fans used within a facility have a significantly bigger impact on the energy bills than most company owners realize.

The essential role of the industrial fans
Industrial fans are extremely vital for factory use and in various industrial operations. They allow for supporting safe working conditions. They help in getting rid of heat, toxic fumes, dirt, and aerial pollutants. They help in ensuring a steady flow of fresh air. The industrial fans also guard the gear from overheating. This efficiently supports production processes by sustaining uniformity.

Due to such importance, these fans frequently operate in a continuous manner throughout the day. Many industrial facilities keep running their fans at full speed irrespective of actual demand. So whether industrial production is going on at a maximum capacity or it is running at a much lower capacity level, these fans keep on consuming the same levels of power all throughout the day.

Fans running at constant full speed lead to greater expenses
When the industrial fans keep running all day, even when it would suffice to keep them running at only moderate speeds, it leads to unnecessary power consumption and wasted money.

The power consumption for industrial fans is directly proportional to the speed at which they are operating. So when they are spinning at high speeds all through the day, it leads to far more energy consumption than is typically compulsory.

This is why even a small reduction in the fan speed can lead to substantial savings. For instance, lowering the fan’s speed by about twenty percent can minimize the power consumption by around fifty percent. Hence, fan optimization is considered to be one of the best ways to save energy within large-scale manufacturing environments.

Simple upgrades that ensure a good reduction in power bills
The best thing is that reducing the fan-based energy bills doesn’t always necessarily require shifting to new equipment. In a lot of cases, the existing fan and cooling systems can be seamlessly upgraded using a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD).

A VFD makes it possible for the motor to easily adjust the fan speed as per the actual airflow requirements. Therefore, instead of running at full speed at all times, the fan slows down automatically when the demand decreases and then speeds up again whenever necessary.