Industry failing to eliminate 'parasitic loads'

Paul Davies of pump and mixer manufacturer, Landia comments on the industry’s failure to address the costly issue of parasitic load – defined as the power consumed even when an electrical appliance is shut off – and takes a pop at the beancounters, who he believes are part of the problem:

Soaring energy bills and the surge towards greener power still hasn’t encouraged enough companies to address parastic loads.

Specifying smaller, cheaper mixers is often bad practice. If industry is serious about reducing energy costs, it’s high time the issue of parasitic load was properly addressed.

Less expensive mixers might satisfy the purchasing department or the accountant who unfortunately appears to be running the show, but long term, we’re seeing these smaller mixers burning up energy 24 hours per day, whereas a larger mixer may only have to run for 10 minutes per hour.  

If you apply an actual engineering solution, which depressingly, some accountant with his head stuck in a PC might not understand, there are energy savings to be made of between 30% to 75%.

Installed power must not be compared to absorbed power. Mixers should be sized to cope with any eventuality, in biogas for example, overloading of the digester, future expansion, change in substrates, change in dry matter.

But if your mixers are already having to work to full capacity, 24/7, there’s no chance of that – and you’re stuck.  Less gas, less profit.  It’s your choice.