Alpha-Rowen Ltd

Client Summary

Alpha-Rowen Limited provides specialist heat treatment services to a range of industrial sectors. The company has an annual energy consumption of 8.1 MWh, with a cost of £880,000 per annum. Alpha-Rowen operates continuous processes, 24 hours per day, 6 days per week.

Alpha-Rowen has recently built a new factory to house several energy-intensive heat treatment process lines to serve increasing and changing customer demands efficiently. The nature of the process remains one of controlled heating of component batches in a specialised endothermic atmosphere where carbon potential is strictly controlled and oxygen is eliminated. At the new location, much of the work involves quenching hot components in molten salt contained in large baths before washing in clean, cold water and drying. The process involves heating components to high temperatures and then cooling them to room temperature within a matter of hours. This is highly energy intensive, and energy consumption must be carefully monitored and controlled.

Any avoidable energy consumption, such as an item of plant being left on longer than required or a burner running out of specification, must be quickly identified and rectified. Similarly, any energy improvement projects or process changes must be accurately monitored over extended periods. Success or failure in the heat treatment sector in the UK is highly dependent on an operator’s ability to control energy costs. This is not generally a labour-intensive sector, and there is no component manufacture involved.

The Old System

Pro Enviro already had experience of installing and operating aM&T systems at two other Alpha-Rowen heat treatment locations, where the energy-saving benefits had been proven. Heat treatment equipment where automated monitoring was essential was quickly identified, and a robust and cost-effective system was designed and installed.

Before the aM&T system (SEE Change) was installed, the client had no method of determining the energy consumption of each of their furnaces and ancillary equipment. This energy-intensive plant was not monitored and managed efficiently, resulting in inefficient start-up and shutdown processes.

New System and Rationale

The new SEE Change aM&T system makes use of 3-phase pulse-output electricity meters and a variety of suitably rated pulse-output natural gas meters, all collecting consumption data from the heat treatment furnaces and their ancillary equipment and transmitting data online to secure, dedicated SEE Change servers. This information is then processed and made available through tailored reports, graphs and alarms.

Authorised managers and manufacturing personnel within the company were provided with personal login accounts to access and analyse the data and review system-generated charts and reports. Personalised dashboards were created for each member of the management and engineering team, displaying the relevant information to help optimise the use of the plant within pre-set limits.

Project Cost and Savings

Overall, the project cost was £23,284, followed by an annual £2,620 licensing and support fee. Pro Enviro was able to assist Alpha-Rowen in closely monitoring and managing its production process costs, with a view to securing significant energy and cost reductions on an ongoing basis at the new site.

Energy costs are carefully controlled by calculating the kWh usage and energy cost per kg of metal heat treated in each process line each day. This ensures that estimates of the cost of processing work are realistic and accurate, and that every opportunity to reduce energy costs can be evaluated and accurately monitored. This could include simple measures such as improved insulation on furnaces or better process burner control, or more complex technologies such as improved methods of generating and controlling special furnace atmospheres.

Savings generated were calculated as 375,000 kWh of gas and 37,500 kWh of electricity, representing annual savings of £46,800 at the current energy unit rates and a reduction of 75 tonnes of CO2_e per annum.