The Coimbatore-based air compressor manufacturing major Elgi Equipments Ltd has joined hands with Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) and designed a comprehensive programme on air audit, to demonstrate the real savings on energy. As energy conservation has become a focus for textile mills with the rising energy cost.

Anvar Jay Varadaraj, Head (Marketing and Corporate Communications), Elgi Equipments said that the most expensive component in the total cost of compressed air is energy.

The programme includes information session for owners and managers on the compressed air best practices, practical training sessions for maintenance engineers and air audit programmes that helps recognize cost savings.

Varadaraj said that under the Elgi-ITF programme, air audits were conducted across 130 textile mills in the South over the past 12 months. The annual savings worked out to Rs. 14 crore with an average compressed air energy cost reduction of 43 percent.

Prabhu Damodaran, Secretary, ITF said that the tie up is focussed on intelligent energy monitoring and optimising air consumption levels. According to ITF estimate, a spinning mill with 20,000 spindles would be able to achieve Rs. 1 crore savings on energy cost.

Elgi is committed to 500 air-alert equipped machines by the end of this calendar year. They have to date, inserted the air-alert sim in the (Elgi) compressors owned by 21 members of the Federation.

The company has recently launched a service Air Alert, a free of cost, sim-based data transmission service that will monitor the compressor's critical parameters to ensure optimum energy consumption and compressor failure prevention.

Explaining the term, Varadaraj said that it is a review of an operation's use of compressed air, taking into account both - generation and distribution.

While review of generation is a comparison of energy consumption, current condition and application to original specification, distribution is evaluating the use of compressed air in the plant, which could include leak in the air lines and general consumption.

Elgi has invested significant sums over the last two years designing sustainable solutions that can help companies achieve their productivity goals without quantifying the investment. They are looking at such partnership with machinery manufacturers across different sectors such as pharmaceutical and automobile among others.