OREANDA-NEWS. The energy-saving practice is not just another participation in the anti-crisis campaign for NIBULON, but a constant activity which is improved as the company develops and expands its production.

NIBULON always remains responsible in all sectors such as social, production, economic. Especially nowadays, when the Ukrainian integrated power system (IPC) functions in difficult conditions caused by broken balance between electricity production and its consumption, IPC deficit in the country.

The energy-saving practice is not just another participation in the anti-crisis campaign for NIBULON, but a constant activity which is improved as the company develops and expands its production. An important part of the technological process is to use natural gas for drying grain. Drying takes 70% of gas consumed when storing grain. Thus, at present the company is improving technology of these operations, increasing their economic component, replacing the U.S.-made burner devices by KP -80 B-32 D devices produced by the Engineering centre "Promgazaparat" (Ukraine), thereby reducing gas consumption.

NIBULON's technical director Oleg Pidgrodetskyy noted the fundamental difference between import and domestic equipment, "The drawback of the U.S.-made burner device in comparison with the domestic one consists in its imperfect design. The reasons are as follows: when the burner device operates, the optimal mode is a mode in which correlation of gas supply and air consumption is 1:10. In this case, the gas consumption for heat treatment is minimal. The gas combustion efficiency in real production conditions depends on many unsteady factors, such as the size of aerodynamical resistance of grain column, relative air humidity, temperature.

The U.S producers of burner devices do not take into consideration these changes. Stable automatic control is absent, causing gas excessive consumption, i.e. when the external conditions change, the burner device operation mode remains unchangeable. Thus, we have made steps to search for new technical solutions to ensure stability of the given proportional correlation when the external conditions change. Having consulted with leading specialists in this sector, we chose the Ukrainian company "Promgazaparat" with which NIBULON has been cooperating since 2008.

This work is constant and large-scale. The company started to install the given devices at "Reshetylivs'ka" branch , "AK Vradiyivs'kyy" Ltd and export transshipment terminal. Firstly, the company changed 35 devices. As a result, the specific gas discharge, for example, at "Reshetylivs'ka" branch was reduced by 11% and by 16% at the transshipment terminal. Having re-equipped grain dryers, NIBULON's specialists worked on variants to improve the equipment in a constructive way, and equipment producers are involved in implementing these variants.

2014 became a year of mass re-equipment of 8 grain dryers. In spring the company signed a contract for the re-equipment of the dryers at the branches "Smotrych", "Zolotonis'ka", "Vitove", "Khmil'nyk", "AK Vradiyivs'kyy" Ltd. And in July, by a technical council decision, NIBULON signed an additional contract for the delivery of another 16 burner devices for two dryers at the export transshipment terminal. Thus, the re-equipment costs (10 dryers) are in total USD 488,162 thousand this year.

There is no need to prove the fact that the investment in energy-saving is repaid a hundredfold. The statistics makes this truth more convincing. When comparing the periods from July to November in 2013 and 2014, we will have an undeniable confirmation that NIBULON's policy in the energy-saving sector being 49,38% at the company's 4 facilities alone is correct.

In July-November 2014, NIBULON's branches considerably reduced gas consumption which comprised 3,479,135 cubic meters against 15,907,772 (i.e. 21,87 %) for the same period in 2013.

Another saving aspect is an efficient way to use high-temperature grain drying with active ventilation. This method is based on the intensification of the heat treatment process by increasing thermodiffusion moisture efficiency which flow, when cooling grain, coincides with the moisture flow removed by diffusion. In this case, the peculiarity of the process is that the high-temperature drying stops at 2% moisture; grain temperature control is performed, and the value of moisture content gradient in the volume of corn seed with further drying at active ventilation machinery is redistributed. The technique advantage is to increase dryer productivity in proportion to the number of heat areas involved. Thus, the modular dryers, for example, Mathews-3180 BEM-NG or its analogues that have seven heat areas in normal drying (warming, drying, cooling) mode can use two lower areas with the third area operating at the heat load reduced.

Consequently, the dryer efficiency is improved by using heat burner reserves and by drying grain mass additionally using its heat over a long period of time and at low temperatures during thermostating.

Other directions in the energy-saving sector will also bring a considerable saving effect. The company tested ТМ MAXUS LED lamps. They will replace luminous tube ones. The lamp life cycles increases (30,000 hours for LED lamps against 13,000 hours for luminous tube ones), influencing the environment positively. The annual lighting saving at NIBULON's offices will comprise 72.3 thousand kW per hour. The process of lamp replacement will be phased.

NIBULON also plans to use new type storage batteries. They will accumulate energy at night, when night tariffs are the cheapest, and this energy will be used during production processes in the daytime.

These actions implemented by NIBULON's specialists will certainly bring saving effect. Thereby, the company contributes to the solution of problems in the energy sector.