Water and Energy Conservation Audits

 

Water and energy conservation audits provide a comprehensive assessment with insights and recommendations to improve whitewater system operations. The primary focus is to optimize water usage via efficient showering, filtration, and energy utilization. Using industry best practices and benchmarks, the assessment leads to specific recommendations designed to optimize filtration and shower systems as well as more efficiently managing the heating, pumping, and steam usage in the paper machine water system.

 

The audit is designed to review current paper machine water system performance with respect to both water consumption and associated energy efficiency and to identify opportunities for improvement, such as:

 

  • Reduced energy for heating water
  • Reduced mill fresh water usage
  • Reduced losses to effluent systems 
  • Reduced waste water treatment costs
  • Reduced dredging and landfill cost savings
  • Increased fiber recovery
  • Improved water quality for machine showers
  • Improved fabric and wet felt conditioning
  • Measure process variation utilizing on-line data collection sensors

 

Features

  • Independent assessment of paper machine water system
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Comparison with best-in-class operations
  • Detailed process improvement recommendations

 

Benefits

  • Water system report identifying actionable opportunities
  • Identification of water and energy saving actions
  • Optimization of filtration and shower systems
  • Detailed ROI project justification

 

Water and energy audit scope of work

  • Evaluate water system based on a "Water Scorecard" to benchmark current process strengths and weaknesses
  • Quantify major systems water flows using ultrasonic flow meter
  • Identify limitations and make process improvement recommendations
  • Work with customer to develop ROI calculation
  • Develop computer model to measure paper machine water system steam usage
  • Map paper machine showers to include flows, pressures, locations, and other variables.
  • Provide recommendations for reducing fresh water and improving shower systems
  • Sample and analyze paper machine water streams
  • Develop machine flow schematic of whitewater systems
  • Provide a qualitative assessment to increase machine runnability
  • Provide detailed written report of findings and recommendations