Reliability and efficiency are the key to select a compressed air vendor for PET bottling and Emirates Refreshments PJSC (Jeema Mineral Water) have provided this honour to Atlas Copco taking into account the vast experience of working with Atlas Copco and the fact that Atlas Copco’s ZDXtend 4-stage high pressure compressor is the most efficient solution available today on the market.

The cooperation between Atlas Copco and Emirates Refreshment Company (ERC) dates back to 1999 when ERC purchased two units of 3-stage reciprocating HP compressors from Atlas Copco for its packaging production. After 16 years of uninterrupted service and taking into account the increased compressed air demand ERC chose to upgrade the compressed air plant. To meet the compressed air demand on both the medium pressure (7 barg) and high pressure (40 barg) at their plant in Dibba located at the periphery of the territory of northern emirates; ERC have acquired 2 units of Atlas Copco ZD Xtend 132/55 in the 1^st half of year 2014.

ZD Xtend compression system is based on a combination of screw and piston technology providing 2-stage screw compression to achieve a pressure of 7-10barg as required and boosting compressed air to 40 barg with 2-stage reciprocating booster both housed in acoustic enclosures that reduces noise to the lowest in the Industry.

Mohamed Elgharib Dibba Plant Manager at ERC said, “After having worked with the old standard 3-stage piston compressors, whenever I walk to the compressor house, I try and listen to see if the machines are working, as I hear almost no noise or vibrations that the standard piston units produced. The ZD concept is definitely a great concept and the fact that Atlas Copco has managed to listen to the customer concerns is worth appreciating.”

The ZDXtend set up allows a user to obtain both 7barg medium pressure air and 40barg high-pressure air from the same set of equipment. Moreover both the compressor and booster deliver 100 per cent pure, clean oil free air that complies with ISO 8573-1 Class Zero (2010) certification, which ensures complete elimination of the risk of contamination to the process downstream.

In a PET plant, energy accounts for a third of the total cost of production of PET bottles. Keeping energy costs in control and bringing a reduction to the energy footprint of a plant is one of the key barometers monitored by the plant management. With 4-stage compression of Atlas Copco’s ZD solution provides 7 per cent direct reduction in energy consumption besides elimination of refrigerant dryer with a built in heat of compression dryer provides further avenue for energy reduction.

If the compressed air system is further provided with variable speed drives the Atlas Copco ZD solution has the potential to deliver additional 20-25 per cent energy savings eliminating energy waste due to fluctuations in air demand that occurs in PET plants due to change of bottle size or shape, cadencies, seasonal peaks, maintenance, stop etc. An Atlas Copco ZDVSD solution is delivered with integrated VSD (Variable Speed Drive) and provides a solution by automatically tuning the compressor’s capacity to meet precisely the increased or decreased air demand thereby eliminating unloaded compressor operation and bringing the desired savings.

The ERC team while selecting compressed air system vendor made a detailed comparison between all the suppliers with an eye on operational flexibility, energy savings and maintenance cost.  Atlas Copco proved that overall Power Consumption of the package was the lowest providing energy savings in operations to the tune of AED 100K (USD 27K) per annum compared to competition. Besides the selected ZD packages delivered the required flexibility in delivering the medium pressure 7 bar air and the high-pressure 37 bar air from the same machines, which means that no additional compressor for 7 bar was required.