Enhance Your Operations: Access Free Energy Management Information Sheets for Plastic Processing
Transform Your Energy Strategy
Elevate your operational efficiency by exploring our introductory two-page quick start guides on energy management tailored for the plastics sector. These thirteen comprehensive information sheets provide insights into various plastic processing techniques, including rotational moulding, injection moulding, extrusion blow moulding, thermoforming, and many more.
Divided into thirteen parts, explore the processing areas below to gain an understanding of optimal energy management practices tailored for your plastics business. All resources are available for free download.
Explore the categories listed below:
- Energy Management Systems: The Fundamental Requirements
- Understanding Energy Use: The Performance Characteristic Line (PCL)
- Monitoring and Targeting (M&T)
- Motors: The Big Energy User
- Compressed Air: The Silent Cost
- Chilled and Cooling Water: The Art of Being Cool
- Drying: It Isn’t Free
- Injection Moulding: Breaking the Mould
- Injection Blow Moulding: Working Under Pressure
- Extrusion: A Key Process
- Extrusion Blow Moulding: Adding 3D to Extrusion
- Rotational Moulding: The Gas Counts
- Thermoforming: Pressing Business
- More on Energy Management
1. Energy Management Systems: The Fundamental Requirements
Energy management is not a single activity that can ever be completed. As with any management activity, it is a constant process of identifying opportunities to get better and implementing actions to capitalise on these. There is an ISO standard for Energy Management Systems (ISO 50001) and this can provide a good framework for energy management activities.
2. Understanding Energy Use: The Performance Characteristic Line (PCL)
Energy use is always controlled or ‘driven’ by an external variable and understanding what drives energy use is critical in targeting energy use reductions. Energy use is driven by either an ‘activity’ or a ‘condition’ driver or a combination of these.
3. Monitoring and Targeting (M&T): Using the Performance Characteristic Line (PCL)
Every site uses monitoring and targeting (M&T) to improve performance across a range of measures and energy management should be no different. The difficulty for most sites is knowing how to monitor and target energy use.
4. Motors: The Big Energy User
All services should follow the same basic programme. Stage 1 is to minimise the demand and Stage 2 is to optimise the supply. This programme aims to optimise the system rather than simply concentrate on a single system element.
5. Compressed Air: The Silent Cost
One of the first and most productive projects for any site is a ‘Compressed Air Management Programme’ to manage and reduce the demand for compressed air.
6. Chilled and Cooling Water: The Art of Being Cool
Plastics processing uses large amounts of energy to not only heat the raw material for forming but also to cool the product after forming. A reliable and consistent source of cooling water is essential for fast and repeatable process times in all sectors of the plastics processing industry. Cooling and refrigeration plant uses between 11% and 16% of the energy used in plastics processing but implementing good practice and proven technology can significantly reduce this expenditure.
7. Drying: It Isn’t Free
Many sites do not dry any polymers at all but for successful processing of hygroscopic polymers, drying is always necessary. If wet polymers are not dried, then moisture inside or on the surface of the plastics granules will be converted to steam during processing and can result in internal voids, surface imperfections or planes of weakness in the product. The cost of providing drying to sites that need it makes it an expensive resource.
8. Injection Moulding: Breaking the Mould
Injection moulding uses considerable energy in the process but only ≈ 5-10% of the energy used by a conventional hydraulic injection moulding machine (IMM) is actually input to the plastic, the remaining ≈ 90-95% is used to operate the machine. This makes the process energy use relatively insensitive to the actual type of plastic processed, i.e., large changes in the material properties only give small changes in the overall energy use.
9. Injection Blow Moulding: Working Under Pressure
Injection blow moulding can be divided into two distinct processes; injection blow moulding, which is an integrated process, and injection stretch blow moulding, which currently has two distinct process steps, i.e. pre-form moulding and later blowing.
10. Extrusion: A Key Process
Extrusion is not only a final forming process but is also an intermediate process for transporting and preparing material in many other processing techniques such as injection moulding, blow moulding and film blowing.
11. Extrusion Blow Moulding: Adding 3D to Extrusion
Extrusion blow moulding (EBM) combines extrusion and moulding to produce 3D products from an extruded parison and in energy terms is approximately midway between extrusion and injection moulding.
12. Rotational Moulding: The Gas Counts
Unlike most other processes, rotational moulding uses gas as the primary energy source (in kWh terms) but electricity use is still important in cost
terms. For rotational moulding, there is a Performance Characteristic Line (PCL) not only for electricity but also for gas.
13. Thermoforming: Pressing Business
Thermoforming can be integrated, where the sheet is extruded and then formed with no break between the stages or a 2-step process where the sheet is extruded and later thermoformed. In this Information Sheet we will only consider the thermoforming step (extrusion is covered in BPF Energy Information Sheet No. 10).
14. More on Energy Management
Course: Energy Management for Plastics Processors
There is an “Energy Management for Plastics Processors” online course that covers essential guidance on energy management for all plastic processors, with selectable modules focused on different manufacturing techniques. More information can be found here.
Book: Energy Management in Plastics Processing - Fourth Edition
This book covers all aspect of energy management in plastics processing - from management systems and benchmarking, through to services and operations. Each topic is covered in a single 2-page spread, providing you with a manageable explanation, clear actions, and key tips for success. The book is free for BPF and CCA members or can be bought here.
Book: Sustainability Management in Plastics Processing
The BPF highly recommends the “Sustainability Management in Plastics Processing” by Dr Robin Kent, which has been used to source some of the above guiding questions. The book is intended to provide practical guidance to plastics processors, providing them with the knowledge and tools to improve their overall sustainability by showing how improvements can be made in key areas. The book is free for BPF members or can be bought here.
The documents available on this page have been thoughtfully produced by BPF Energy to help guide plastic processors in implementing effective energy management strategies. Discover how you can achieve substantial reductions in your business's energy bills by participating in the CCA scheme. Click here to learn more.
