Most compressed air system components need between 5.5 bar (80psi) to 6.0 bar (87psi) to function. If your supply is set higher than that, chances are you can reduce the system pressure.
On screw compressors, you can achieve an energy reduction of between 3-8% for every 1 bar (14.5psi) you reduce your compressor set pressures by.
Additionally every unregulated (or regulators adjusted above the supply pressure) compressed air user will consume proportionately less compressed air.
How to safely reduce System Pressure
Start by dropping your compressor set points by around 0.2 bar (3 psi) and leave them for a week or so. Then each week drop them by another 0.1 bar (1.5 psi). Repeat this cycle until a piece of equipment starts to experience occasional pressure issues or you start to get alarms from low pressure.
Investigate the reason for the low pressure issue and see if it can be eliminated. It might be a worn component, piping, valve, filter or regulator issue. Typically regulators can be adjusted downwards by between 0.3 to 0.5 bar and sometimes greater. Each regulator should be adjusted to the minimum level required for the equipment to operate reliably. If you can eliminate the pressure issue, continue the process of reducing your system pressure until you can not go any lower without causing production issues.
Once you have reached the minimum operating pressure, increase the pressure by by 0.2 bar to provide some storage buffer in the system.
If you don’t know how to change the compressor settings, get in touch with your compressor supplier.
Measure your System Pressure
Measuring and monitoring pressure at multiple points on your compressed air system can be used to identify issues with compressors, filters, dryers, and pipework. Differential pressure across filters can be used to establish optimum intervals for element replacement helping to maintain system efficiency.
Compressed Air Alliance can measure your system pressure, as well as flow rate, dew point, system efficiency, consumption and more. Learn more about our Measurement and Monitoring program.
We sell pressure sensors. Find out if our pressure sensors are right for you.
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