Eaton stops nuisance trips and saves money For HG Timber 05 December 2011

Nuisance tripping of a main incoming circuit breaker at HG Timber has been eliminated following a free on-site power factor correction survey by Eaton's Electrical Sector.

The timber pallets and warehouse decking manufacturer also report that actions taken as a result of the survey have resulted in energy bills reduced by 20%, with a corresponding reduction in its carbon footprint of 62 tons of CO2.

The problem was on its main 400A incoming circuit breaker, and started when HG Timber reached full production capacity, after moving manufacturing to a new site near Buckingham.

"Right from the outset, the service and support we received from Eaton put it well ahead of the other company," comments Alistair Theodoulou, managing director of HG Timber.

"And, as we had always had good experiences of Eaton products and services in the past, we decided that we would work with the Eaton team to find a solution to the problem," he continues.

Eaton's technicians found that when the plant – which includes a high speed, four-way pallet production line with robotic technology – was operating at full capacity, the load on the incoming circuit breaker was 395A.

This was sufficiently close to the breaker's maximum rating to cause nuisance tripping. The survey also revealed, however, that the load power factor was poor, because of the large number of motor-driven machines on the site.

Eaton suggested power factor correction equipment from its capacitor range, as this automatically adjusts the level of power factor correction to suit the instantaneous load.

After fitting the new equipment, the maximum load current reduced to 350A, with a power factor of about 0.95 – easily sufficient to eliminate the nuisance tripping. In addition, because of the way the supply tariff at HG Timber is structured, the reduced maximum load and improved power factor cut electricity bills by around 20%.

"The power factor correction equipment from Eaton's Electrical Sector is already proving to be an excellent investment," comments Theodoulou, "especially as it achieves savings by eliminating reactive energy that does no useful work."

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Eaton Electric Ltd

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