Aesica saves over £67,000 a year in energy costs at one plant with GEM steam traps

Purchased from Merck Sharp & Dohme in 2006, Aesica’s Ponders End site is a hi-tech manufacturing facility located in Enfield, North London with a capacity to produce 300 tons of products per year. It has potent compound and bulk manufacturing facilities producing Active Potent Ingredients for MSD products.

When Merck Sharp & Dohme recruited Phil Page as Utilities Engineer & Energy Manager, he was given special responsibility for saving energy. Having previously installed GEM steamtraps when employed at GlaxoSmithKline, another leading pharmaceutical company, he was aware of the energy savings that could be made using the patented venturi orifice design. He therefore had no hesitation in calling in GEM to carry out a full survey of the steam system.

The report from GEM showed that approximately 10% of the steamtraps on the site were failing open resulting in 8,900 tonnes of steam being lost each year at a cost of £67,200. Not only was this increasing energy and maintenance costs but also was reducing production time and having an environmental impact by creating 3000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.

GEM explained that by replacing the existing traps with the GEM venturi orifice design, blocked steam traps could be prevented from impacting on production and by efficiently returning condensate back to the boilers energy saving would be made. During the following 12-months all 200 mechanical traps were replaced with appropriately sized GEM steam traps.

The company’s American headquarters had set the site an energy reduction target of 25% over a three-year period. By installing the GEM steam traps, the company achieved its target not in three years but in less than 12 months. Such was the site’s accomplishment that a senior executive visited from the US to see how the energy savings had been achieved. Merck Sharp & Dohme is now considering the use of GEM traps at one of its US manufacturing plants prior to rolling out the use of GEM traps throughout its world operation.

“Mechanical traps fail and this has an effect on production times and costs as well as energy, maintenance and the environment”, says Phil Page. “Fixed orifice steam traps do not fail open. Because of the success of the GEM steam traps, Aesica has now decided to complete those final areas not previously converted to GEM traps to benefit from additional energy savings”.

Instead of utilising a valve mechanism to close off steam for maximum energy and water conservation, the highly efficient GEM steam traps use the venturi orifice design to effectively drain condensate from the steam system. As the GEM steam traps have no moving parts to wedge open or fail, it provides the ultimate in reliability necessitating only minimal maintenance and requiring no spares, testing or monitoring equipment.

When asked about blockages in the system Phil Page responded: “In the past 2 years we have only cleaned 2 traps after a site shutdown this was due to debris left behind after installing new condensate pipe work. The only other problem was RE 800, which had to be re-sized after a reactor change. We are very pleased with the traps and have relaxed our PM to monitor the discharge temperature.”

Available in a wide range of sizes for a full cross section of applications, the hardwearing GEM steam traps are manufactured from corrosion resistant stainless steel and are guaranteed for 10 years, obviating the need for repair or replacement. The GEM steam traps provide a fast payback - on some processes within a matter of days - from reduced energy costs and increased equipment reliability due to a reduction in damaging condensate in steam systems. In addition it improves product processing by enhancing the quality of steam and also reducing equipment repairs, downtime and replacement costs.