VSD’s give whisky galore
May 1st 2005

Crucial to the process at the Glenfiddich whisky distillery in Scotland is the cooling of the condensate. The water for the cooling operation comes from a storage dam, which is in turn topped up by pumping from a nearby pond.

“We use two pumps to push the water up against gravity to the storage dam” says Glenfiddich’s Derek Matheson. “We run the pumps at fixed speed 24/7, 365 days per year, but began to wonder if we could increase efficiency”.

Looking for system that could help Glenfiddich found an ultrasonic level measurement and water distribution system from Siemens Process Instruments the EnviroRanger ERS500. The EnviroRanger monitors and controls liquid levels, providing control outputs to Variable Speed Drives for efficient pump operation.

Two Siemens Automation and Drives MicroMaster inverters were installed, linked via Profibus to the EnviroRanger, which provides the control signals based on the water level in the dam. Since the power used by a pump is proportional to the cube of the speed, a nominal reduction in speed can give a large reduction in energy.

Other benefits include the drives ramping up the pumps, thus saving the motors from high initial torque hits.

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