Section B: Bottling Up Plant Improvement
Opportunities 2009
B1: Factory Power
System
Executive Summary
This report lists the findings/observations of Walkthrough
Survey, options generated for improvement and detailed
explanation of suggestions.
The options generated are based upon findings of a half day
survey. As it was not a planned survey, no measurements could
be organized. The data available at the plant was not adequate.
Hence, most of the options do not contain a saving figure and
payback. The options generated are well over 200 under 10 Madan Karki
main headings.
9/2/2009

Headwise Options Generated
Section Heading No. of Options
B1 Factory Power System 8
B2 Compressed Air System 35
B3 Boiler & Steam System 36
B4 Refrigeration System 38
B5 Cooling Towers 25
B6 Motors & Drive System 20
B7 Building & Premises 21
B8 Water Conservation 23
B9 Pumps, Pumping System & 9
WTP
B10 Energy Management 11
B11 Process Equipments
Total 226
Factory Power System
Existing System
• 2x500 kVA Kirlosker gensets have been just installed. Grid
Power has been received through 11 kV grid via 800 kVA
transformer.
• A new changeover system has been installed with auto start
& auto changeover system comprising electro-mechanically
interlocked ACBs & motors for switch transfer. It is a
conventional method.
Observations
The power is not seamless even after investment in new
changeover system with a gap of at least 40 seconds, which
will develop transients & spikes and cause crippling effect
resulting into failure of electronic cards.
Suggestions
1. Install bio-mass based Tri-Generation System thru gasifier
route
2. Upgrade safety standard of DBs.
Page 2 of 16

3. Improve Power Quality by installing Online UPS
4. Minimize the losses between Transformer & Main LT Panel by
energy efficient cabling.
5. Check Transformer Efficiency
6. Maintain High Power Factor
7. Upgrade Earthing & Lightening Protection System to TNS
System
8. Use LED lamps for all panel indication
Page 3 of 16

Factory Power System & Electricals
1. Install bio-mass based Tri-Generation System hrtu gasifier route. Cost saving Rs. 1.45
Lacs daily, 3 Crore annually. Payback 6 months.
• Running Load - 600 kVA, Avg. load of chiller - 150 kVA, Plant pf - ??
• Daily Consumption: NEA Units – 10,000 kWh, Captive Generation – 4000
kWh
• Furnace Oil Consumption in boiler – 1200 L
• Daily energy cost – Rs. 1.75 Lacs
Alternative to current arrangement, a biomass based tri-generation
system through gasifier route is proposed here. The gasifier will gasify
rice husk into combustible gas, which can be fed to an IC engine. The
650 kVA old genset lying at Bottler’s premise is ideal for this conversion.
The exhaust gas from the genset will be into boiler. There will be some
heat available from boiler exhaust also to be utilized for the application
like dehumidification etc.
A process flow chart with energy and mass balance is given here:
Gasifier – converts biomass into 2100 kW
combustible gas – 600 kg/hr of Electrical Power
rice husk, heat generated 2100 IC
400 kW, 480 kVA
kW Engine
1600 kW
VAM Chiller, 800
Boiler - 1200 kW- 1800 kg/hr of steam kg/hr, 200 TR
(1000 kg/hr to the plant, 800 kg/hr to VAM
Chiller)
Process
400 kW application in the
plant (1000 kg/hr)
Stack Loss from 200 kW
200 kW available for waste heat
chimney 200 kW recovery application; e.g.
10% of total dehumidification of plant,
Page 4 of 16

The schematic arrangement of the equipment is given here:
The space required is 15mx15m (225 m2).
Page 5 of 16

It shall be noted here that VAM chillers are available on direct fire type;
i.e. the flue gas exhaust from the gas engine can be fed directly to the
chiller without converting it into steam. In this arrangement, the losses
will be much lesser.
• Absorption cooling systems, like vapor compression systems, rely on a
cycle of condensation and evaporation to produce cooling.
• But, the absorption unit has an absorber and a generator to take low-
pressure refrigerant vapor and make it into high-pressure vapor.
• The absorption chiller does not use a compressor
Gas Fired Absorption Chillers
In this proposed
scenario, only cost is
the rice husk. With
hourly consumption of
600 kg/hr, the daily
consumption would be
14.4 Ton. Going by
Biratnagar price (Rs. 1/
kg), the daily cost
would be Rs. 14,400
against the existing
cost of 1.75 Lacs.
Since, an industry (Wai
Wai) is already using
rice husk within BID,
their cost can be
obtained for this
evaluation. In my
opinion, it may not be more
than Rs. 2/kg, which means
Rs. 29000 per day; i.e. a
saving of Rs. 1.45 Lacs
daily. Assuming an 8 month
operation (200 days), the
annual saving will be 3 Cr.
The cost of investment will
be 1.5 Cr including rice husk
storage shed, which means
a payback period of 6
month, & 200% ROI.
Page 6 of 16

The only risk in this scheme is the availability and price of fuel. It is to be
noted here that except Rice Husk, following Biomass can be used in the
Gasifiers as fuel:
 Agricultural residues (straw/chaff of rice, wheat, mustard etc)
 Energy crops (hybrid poplars, switch-grass, willows)
 Wood residues (chunks, sawdust, pellets, chips)
By using rural agro-waste as fuel, the unit can directly contribute to the
rural economy & leverage it as a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
activity.
Biomass is a carbon neutral fuel as plants remove Carbon
Dioxide from the atmosphere & store it while they
grow. Burning biomass will return this sequestered
CO2 to the atmosphere. New plant will capture this
CO2 & keep the atmosphere’s carbon cycle in
balance. This net-zero carbon cycle can be repeated
indefinitely, as long as biomass is re-grown in the next
cycle. In contrast, fossil fuels are not carbon neutral
because they release CO2 stored since millions of
years & do not have any storage or sequestration
capacity. It means “Biomass fuels contribute to Zero net
production of greenhouse gases”.
By switching over to biomass gasification system, the
unit will reduce the emission of 1000 M Tons of CO2
annually to the atmosphere. Carbon Credits are
available for these, which can be sold in the open market. Biomass has
very Low sulfur content – which reduces acid rain.
What is a gasifier?
It is a conversion of solid fuel into a combustible gaseous fuel mixture
called Producer Gas by partial combustion of biomass. The gasifier is
essentially a chemical reactor, where the biomass fuel undergoes
following physical & chemical processes to produce a gaseous fuel:
Drying, Pyrolysis, Combustion & Oxidation.
2. Upgrade safety standard of DBs.
Observations:
 Earth-fault protection with ELCB/RCCB is not provided in the
electrical circuits.
Page 7 of 16

 Color coding of the cables & wires not maintained in the DBs.
 Proper termination of cabling not done. Cable Lugs & glands not
used.
 Ferrules are not provided for cable identification.
 Numbering of switches & other components not done for
identification & tracking.
 Cable sizing inadequate. Fault current level not considered while
selecting cable sizes.
 The DBs shall be lockable, which is not the case.
Page 8 of 16

3. Improve Power Quality by installing Online UPS – for seamless high quality
power (free of transients, spikes & harmonics).
It is recommended here to install a 400 kVA static (Inverter Rectifier
combination) Online UPS with 68 nos. of (250 AH, 12V) Sealed
maintenance free battery in two banks connected in parallel for
improved equipment reliability due to reasons given below.
Due to acute power shortage in the country, no. of power cuts have
increased drastically causing failure of electronic control cards resulting
into huge maintenance cost & machine downtime.
Several industries use servo voltage stabilizer to get rid of voltage
problem, but this equipment has more demerits than the benefit it can
provide.
First, servo voltage stabilizer has very high losses, i.e. in the range of
15%. Efficiency of a voltage stabilizer is around 85%. An Online UPS is will
have the efficiency above 93%. Hence the efficiency gain will be by 8
point. For a 600 kVA average load for 24 hours a day & 200 days per
annum with 0.8 as power factor, the energy saved per annum will be
230 MWh, which is 23 Lacs in terms of monitory value (weighted
average price of NEA & Captive generation, Rs. 10/kWh).
The voltage correction is done through a mechanical servomotor in a
servo stabilizer, which takes some time. By the time it corrects, the
voltage is changed already. Hence, in most of the stabilizers, the motor
works continuously trying to achieve the setpoint, but it will never be able
to achieve that.
The proposed equipment will provide very good power quality with
drastically reduced loss (at least 10 point higher than existing stabilizer)
& seamless power supply on downstream irrespective of number of
power cuts with nil machine downtime & nil card failures.
Power Quality & Life of Electronic control cards – Voltage stabilizer can not
reduce but actually increases transients, spikes and harmonics. Due to
this, electronic control cards of machines are failing frequently. With the
online UPS, the supply is first converted into DC and then back to AC
again at the exactly desired parameter. In this process, all transients and
spikes get filtered out and the downstream power will be of utmost
quality.
With this system, the power on downstream will be seamless, i.e. people on
shopfloor will not know whether there was any power cut, because
during the changeover period form grid supply to captive generation, the
power will be supplied through the battery backup.
Page 9 of 16

Landed Cost of proposed system will be 50 Lacs and will require a
10’x10’ room. In this case the payback period will be around 1.5 years.
Page 10 of 16

4. Minimize the losses between Transformer & Main LT Panel by energy efficient cabling.
It is highly recommended to use energy efficient cabling system that will
reduce energy consumption through lower copper losses and improve
safety through better power quality at the same time.
The location of the transformer room and main switch room should be
immediately adjacent to, above or below each other. But, in the unit,
they are situated at significant distance, which is a design fault.
According to norms, the copper losses should not exceed 0.5% of the
total active power transmitted along the circuit conductors at the rated
circuit current. The design guideline for this can be found in the Code of
Practice for Energy Efficient Electrical Installations.
In case of the unit, we have two options. First, explore the possibility of
shifting transformer near to main LT panel. If it is not possible, then add
energy efficient additional cable length to the existing ones between
Transformer and the main LT panel.
5. Check Transformer Efficiency
 Check efficiency and sizing of step-down transformer. Older,
underloaded, or overloaded transformers are often inefficient.
 Use the optimum transformer taps.
6. Maintain High Power Factor
Low power factor reduces the efficiency of the electrical distribution
system both within and outside of your facility. Low power factor results
when induction motors are operated at less than full load. Many utilities
charge a penalty if power factor dips below 95%. Installing single
capacitors or banks of capacitors either at the motor or the motor control
centers addresses this problem.
A. Group Compensation
2. Eliminates kVA surcharge
3. Increases service panel capacity
B. Substation Compensation
i. Eliminates kVA surcharge
ii. Increases service panel capacity
iii. Partial reduction in line losses
iv. Partial increase in plant distribution capacity
C. Individual Compensation
i. Eliminates kVA surcharge
ii. Increases service panel capacity
iii. Maximizes reduction of line losses
Page 11 of 16

iv. Improves voltage unbalance between phases
v. Increases life expectancy of motors
vi. Adds flexibility for future expansion and changes
Page 12 of 16

7. Upgrade Earthing System
The earthing system of a building or site is a critical part of the electrical
infrastructure and can determine the future viability of businesses
operating in it. It is required to deal with short duration fault currents of
several hundred Amperes, standing currents of a few Amperes and high
frequency noise currents returning them to source or ground with close
to zero voltage drop for noise currents and with no risk of damage for
fault currents. At the same time, it must protect the equipment and
personnel housed in the building during lightning strikes (fast transients in
the kA region) in the interconnected earthing system.
In traditional electrical engineering, separate earthing systems were
used, for example, signal earth, computer earth, power earth, lightning
earth etc.
In today’s electrical engineering new insights have been gained on the
aspect of earthing and grounding and its relation to instrument
protection. The concept of separate earthing systems has been
abandoned and the international standards now prescribe one overall
earthing system. There is no such thing as ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ earth.
This single earthing concept means in practice that protective earth (PE)
conductors, parallel earthing conductors, cabinets and the shields and
screens of data or power cables are all interconnected. Also steel
construction parts and water and gas pipes are part of this system.
Ideally all cables entering a zone must enter at one point at which all
screens and other earth conductors are connected.
To reduce interference on equipment the earthing loops between cable-
screens and other earthing structures must be kept small. Bonding
cables against metal structures makes these structures act as parallel
earthing conductors (PEC). Parallel earthing structures are used both for
data and power cables.
Examples are, in ascending order of effectiveness: earthing wires, cable
ladders, flat metal surfaces, cable trays or ultimately metal pipes. The
PEC reduces the impedance of the loop formed by the cable and the
earthing network. The earthing resistance to mother earth is mostly not
important for the protection of equipment. A very effective form of a PEC
is a densely woven or completely closed cable screen with a large metal
cross-section, connected all around at both ends of the cable.
To keep the impedance of bonding connections in the earthing network
small for high frequencies, litz wire (stranded, individually insulated) or
metal strips with a length to width ratio smaller than 5 must be used. For
frequencies higher than 10 MHz round wires should not be used.
Page 13 of 16

A raised floor can serve as a good equipotential plane. The copper grid
underneath it must have a maximum spacing of 1.2 meters and be
connected to the common bonding network via many equipotential
bonding conductors. The grid should be connected to a 50 mm2 copper
ring placed around the raised floor area, within the boundaries of the
floor, at 6 metre intervals. Power and signal cables should be at least 20
cm apart and where they cross, they should do so at right angles.
The design of the earthing system of a building, including the lightning
protection system, requires great care if all the objectives are to be met.
It is, as usual, best and cheapest if it is designed correctly from the start,
considering the lifetime of the building and, as far as possible, the
potential usage during that lifetime.
Page 14 of 16

8. Use LED lamps for all panel indication.
Incandescent lamps have been used as indicator lamps in electrical
control panels, which consumes lot of power. It will be good idea to
replace them with LED lamps.
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are made of an advanced semi-conductor
material that emits visible light when current passes through it. Different
conductor materials are used, each emitting a distinctive wavelength of
light. LEDs come in red,
amber, blue, green, and a
cool white, and have limited
applications at this time.
LED lamps are the newest
addition to the list of energy
efficient light sources. While
LED lamps emit visible light in
a very narrow spectral band, they can produce "white light". This is
accomplished with either a red-blue-green array or a phopshor-coated
blue LED lamp. LED lamps last 40,000 to 100,000 hours depending on
color. The current challenges of the LED source are a poor Color
Rendering Index (CRI) of 65 or lower and poor efficacy, often less than
30 lumens per watt. LED lamps have made their way into numerous
lighting applications including exit signs, traffic signals, under-cabinet
lights, and various decorative applications. Though still in their infancy,
LED lamp technologies are rapidly progressing and show promise for the
future.
LED light strips for under-cabinet lighting, for cove lighting, for shelf and
cabinet interior lighting, and for edge lighting.
LED Lamp advantages, disadvantages, and appropriate uses
Advantages:
 Impact resistant
 Operate best at cooler temperatures so good for outdoor applications
 Small size
 Low to medium efficacy, depending on the color. Red is highest,
followed by amber, green, white & blue.
A more efficient white light can be created by combining red, green, and
blue LEDs. White LEDs are currently about 30 lumens per watt, but
efficacies are expected to increase steadily.
 Monochromatic color for exit signs, signals, and special effects
 Effective for rapid or frequent switching applications
Disadvantages:
Page 15 of 16

 Rapid lumen depreciation: White LEDs may last 12,000 hours or longer,
but “useful life” is only 6,000 hours, the point at which point light
output has reduced 50%.
 Monochromatic color
 Heat buildup
 Cost
 White LEDs are still bluish & provide low lumens per watt, similar to
incandescent. Both conditions are expected to improve rapidly over the
next 15 years.
Appropriate Uses:
 Currently used primarily in exit signage, traffic signaling, and certain
special effects
 Excellent for projecting words or an image – as in walk/don’t walk
signs or exit signs. FEMP recommends them for these uses.
 LED sources may have the greatest potential for technical
improvements and new applications in the next 15 years.
Page 16 of 16