Medium voltage fan save: Energy efficient fan systems in power engineering, part 1

Fan systems, pumping systems and compressed air systems consume approximately 60% of total electricity generated worldwide. At the same time, these systems have very significant cost-effective energy saving potential. Nevertheless, the major barriers to effectively and widely apply the generally known recommendations are i) the need of individual evaluation of each application for concrete facilities ii) the lack of methodology and/or tools that would be able to sufficiently and reliably quantify the real energy saving potential for the most suitable technology both from technological and economical point of view. In this paper, we present the results of the research project which is intended to overcome these barriers. By specific, we present the developed software tool, methodology and physical background of modeling with the emphasis on comparison of conventional flow control methods to variable speed drives (VSDs). Case study results are also included.