Energy Savings in Paper Machine Vacuum System - How to utilize modern process and variable speed drive technology, PaperCon 2010 Conference

Please Note: This document will be available in PDF format in the "My Electronic Documents" link on the home page once your order has been completed. Please make sure you have the latest version of Acrobat Reader. Click on the Acrobat Reader icon to check for the latest version, it’s FREE. To print a hardcopy of a PDF file correctly you must have a postscript printer. If you are not sure if your printer is a postscript printer please refer to your owner’s manual.

Energy prices are soaring beyond all expectations. On the other hand, new technologies are emerging to tackle this challenge. But how much energy can be saved without putting paper production at risk? In the paper industry, we are use to – for a good reason – to be rather conservative in applying new inventions. Savings and cost factors tend to be marginal in relation to the overall cost and income. Any disturbance in production, however, will cost a lot in lost profits.

The rising price of energy is putting pressure on paper production costs. Besides the pulp production, the paper machine line consumes a significant amount of energy. When the production volumes are high, the process equipment is a heavy user of energy. From this process equipment, the big pumps and paper machine line drives are the heavy users of energy. New technologies in process design, pumping principles and variable speed electric drives can cut the pumping energy bill dramatically.