SKF bearings help Lontra compressor reduce energy consumption by over 20 per cent

17 August, 2016

Using SKF SimPro Expert, SKF analysed the bearing arrangement and established the optimum pre-load in order to achieve optimal bearing service life, and therefore achieve maximum efficiency.

Since installation the bearings have proven to be the ideal solution and are expected to be installed on future versions of the Blade Compressor.

In application

Severn Trent Water, one of the UK’s largest water and wastewater service companies, saw the potential of the Blade Compressor, which is why in 2012 it installed a prototype of the compressor at its Worcester facility in a full-scale trial as a ‘duty blower’.

Initially intended to be a six-month trial to explore energy efficiency, the Blade Compressor excelled to such an extent that Severn Trent Water opted to keep it in operation. In fact, the site’s instrumentation and supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) showed that conventional blowers used more than 20 per cent more electricity to deliver an equivalent amount of air when compared with Lontra’s Blade Compressor.

These remarkable results prompted Severn Trent Water’s then chief executive Tony Wray to report that, were the Lontra Blade Compressor to be rolled out across all of Severn Trent’s wastewater treatment works, the company could save more than £1.8 million a year in electricity costs, with a significant reduction in the company’s overall carbon emissions of three percent.

www.skf.com