Compressed air systems in cement plants: baselining the compressed air systems at fifty cement plants

Compressed air in cement plants is a vital but costly utility which often suffers from benign neglect leading to excess operating and capital costs. Plants have an opaque understanding of its true cost and where the opportunity lies. In this paper, the analysis of the data from the audits of fifty cement plants is presented which will allow cement companies to baseline their own systems and determine if and what should be done about those subsystems. When viewed strictly as a Return on Investment Project, compressed air projects typically have strong returns. The average plant in North America has an opportunity to reduce its operating cost by 28% and its energy consumption by 31 %. The typical project payback was 25 months.