Improve efficiency and cut food process plant costs

Eight ABB standard drives are saving Ginsters bakery a potential 17% per annum on its chilled water energy bill following installation on chiller pumps at its Callington bakery in Cornwall.

The bakery, which employs 370 staff producing in excess of three and a half million pastry products a week, was keen to investigate its energy use to improve efficiency and cut costs at the plant.

Tom Crawford, Projects Manager, says: “Ginsters is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and this is part of our strategy to do so. Of course, it also makes good business sense to reduce the spend on utilities.”

Ginsters asked ABB to carry out an energy survey at the plant, which it did it with the help of ABB's Drives Alliance partner, APDS. The survey focused on the refrigeration system, in which chilled water pumps ran constantly with a full unrestricted flow. These pumps provide chilled water to the cold storage and production areas of the plant. Says Crawford: “Although the application itself is not critical, it supports a system which is critical to the production facility.”

APDS measured the power consumption of the pumps over 24 hours and analysis showed that using a variable speed drive to achieve a speed reduction of only 6% would reduce energy consumption, and therefore, operational costs by some 17%.

A trial installation of an ABB drive showed improved stability of the system and again reduced power consumption. Following this, permanent ABB drives were installed on all pumps. Alan Jones of APDS says: “The drives have been running for eight months now and Ginsters are set to achieve a one year payback on the application.”
Crawford adds: “Reduced power consumption has been realised on site and we know from the pre and post installation surveys that we are using less electricity to drive the pumps.”

For more information please contact;

Steve Ruddell
ABB Limited
Daresbury Park
Daresbury
Warrington
Cheshire
WA4 4BT
Tel: 01925 741 111
Fax: 01925 741 212