Sustainable ventilation at composite fabrication factory
AHU Retrofit, Malaysia
Challenge & Proposed Solutions:
In the pursuit of sustainability, the factory owner, located in Malaysia, aimed to reduce the energy consumed by their facility. One of the identified strategies was to upgrade the air handling unit (AHU) fans to more efficient alternatives.
Following an analysis of the factory owner’s requirements, we recommended to retrofit the existing AC-belt driven fans with ebm‑papst’s Generation 3 EC RadiPac centrifugal fans. In addition, to enable intuitive EC fan control, the intelligate Touch controller was installed as well.
The below table reflects the parameters before and after the retrofit:
Benefits:
- The multiple fan concept enables operational redundancy. This means if one fan fails, the other fans can increase its airflow to compensate for the airflow loss.
- The RadiPac EC fan is an integrated unit that requires minimal maintenance. AC belt-driven fans often require more extensive maintenance, such as replacement or tightening of the belt
- The efficient and integrated design of the RadiPac EC Generation 3 fan enables high efficiency performance. In this project, the upgrade was able to achieve 82% in energy savings.
- The ability to have variable fan speed allows for more precise fan speed control that leads to more energy savings as fans can be set to operate at any desired speed to meet optimal airflow and not at a fixed speed which may be too high or too low.
- For example, after a period of operation, the factory owner decided to lower the fan speed further, enabling energy savings of 90%.
- EC fans are also known to produce less noise compared to their AC belt-driven fans. This will improve the comfort of the personnel in the vicinity.
- As shown in the video, EC fans are also compact and has a ‘plug and play’ design, enabling easier installation as compared to their bulky AC belt-driven counterpart.
- The robustness of the RadiPac EC fan enables the option to increase the desired airflow in the event that it is required by the factory owner.
- The intelligate Touch EC fan controller enables intuitive EC fan control and monitoring.
In addition to achieving the original goal of reducing the facility’s overall energy consumption, the AHU fan retrofit also brought about several additional benefits for the factory owner.
