Freudenberg Filtration Technologies

Saving Energy with Viledon® Air Filters

30 Apr 2009

Saving energy – but how?

The words „saving energy“ are on everyone’s lips nowadays. Prices for the fossil fuels gas and oil have more than doubled since 2000. And consequently the electricity prices in the European Union have increased by about 30 percent (source: Eurostat). In the future, successful companies will more than ever be using energy with maximized efficiency, enabling them to achieve cost advantages and a competitive edge on what are now globalised markets, and reduce their dependence on imported energy sources. Many of the measures designed to achieve energy savings entail capital investment in new equipment. But there are also major potentials for savings in areas where at first sight no one would expect them: A substantial proportion of the energy consumed by HVAC systems is attributable to their pressure drops; air filters can account for up to 50 percent of the total pressure drops in HVAC systems. So here are some sizeable potentials for savings, ones that can be tackled with exceptionally simple methods. A life-cycle cost (LCC) study shows that 70 to 80 percent of the total costs for air filters are accounted for by the energy costs they cause. Only 20 to 30 percent are expended on the filter price, filter changes and filter disposal. We have developed a special LCC software package, enabling us to compute which filters are best to use and when the optimum time to change them has arrived. We’ll be pleased to advise you!

Energy savings – made easy!

Air filters aren’t all the same, you know: even if the Filter Class is identical among different makes, it doesn’t mean that all the characteristics relevant to actual are also identical. In terms of pressure drop, particularly, there are major differences. An air filter’s pressure drop increase begins slowly at first when the filter is new, and then progressively speeds up until the maximum dust storage capacity has been reached. The fan in an HVAC system consumes electrical energy during operation in order to overcome the filter’s resistance, for example. In the case of variable-peed fans, energy consumption will continually increase as a consequence of the air filters’ pressure drop. A reduction of 10 Pa in a filter’s average pressure drop will correspondingly lower the energy consumption of the variable-speed fan, and given a normal volume flow of 3,400 m³/h will result in cost savings of about € 20 per filter over the course of a year (8,500 operating hours). So it makes good sense to categorize filters not only by their Filter Classes according to EN 779 but also in terms of Energy-Efficiency Classes. This makes it easier to choose the most favourable filter in terms of energy economy. Meticulous cleaning and maintenance of HVAC systems, combined with optimum replacement intervals, will create additional cost advantages. The Viledon filterCair filter service program will provide you with the appropriate can-do support.

Energy-Efficiency Classes for air filters

To facilitate comparisons between different air filters, we have developed a new Energy-Efficiency Class concept, whose ratings correlate the Filter Class to EN 779 and the temporally averaged pressure drop.

Get the full version and download "Saving Energy with Viledon® Air Filters"