In my previous article, I mentioned the upcoming legislation on Air-compressor performances. 

In the automotive industry, since two years, the Diesel Gate scandal keeps ongoing and despite the focus is on the VW group, it seems that most car manufacturers are trying to escape from it. The unclear or limited specified way of measuring the real consumption, leads to fuel consumptions and related polution, which are off specification by a factor of x%. The lab conditions, in which the cars are being tested, is far from the real road conditions.

 When the limits on Air-compressor performances will be applicable on single compressor units, how many will comply with the Real performance ?

The specific Energy consumption (ie kW/m3/min or HP/CFM) can be calculated by dividing the Real Power consumed by the real Flow produced.

In the leaflets from the Compressor Manufacturers, the Flow and the Nominal power is being published, not any specific power/energy consumption. The flow is measured according to the ISO1217 method. The tolerance on flow allowed is 3-5% depending on the size of the compressor.

What should be specified is the flow and the specific energy consumption. 

Like the consumption of the car being different in the laboratory than on real road conditions, the compressor (room) real consumption is different than the single unit full load condition.

The real specific energy consumption is also depending on the configuration of the installation. A single unit might be having the best performance, if used often in part-load all the time, a lot of energy is wasted. Centrifugals and Rotaries are having high partial load consumption. Rotaries are better at part load than Centrifugals, but still wasting too much energy at partial load.

Is the Air-Compressor-Gate (ACG) scandal the next big news ?