Tyler Pipe Protecting the Environment

At McWane, we encourage our team members to actively seek ways to save money and protect the environment. To achieve this, Tony Caudill recently reported that Tyler Pipe had entered into an Energy Reduction Program which is sponsored by the Public Utility Commission and administered by the local electric provider. The Program offers an incentive in the form of a credit on electrical costs for participants that reduce electric demand and power usage. After considering several different ways they could reduce their energy needs such as lighting, water heaters, and cooling towers and their payback, they decided they could make the most impact by replacing an air compressor along with a Scada Control for all five compressors.

The new unit was sized and chosen to be compatible with the existing compressors to provide, as best as possible, a variable supply of demand response for Tyler's production and product schedules. Tony Caudill designed, programmed and implemented an in-house Scada Control System to control and stage the compressors on and off when needed. This resulted in the reduction of "idle running" of the compressors which consumed power due to the inefficiency of this action as well as the lost production time due to lack of air pressure in the facility. Another benefit of replacing the "screw" type compressor was the reduction of oil consumption and associated waste handling that was required.

After the initial modeling of the Energy Reduction Program, an energy credit was reserved by the electric provider. The monetary credit along with the electric cost reduction will result in a payback of the costs associated with purchasing the components in 12 months.

Congratulations to Tony and the entire Tyler Pipe team for coming up with an incredible way to save resources and protect the environment!