Good News Press, Essex

Good News Press – powerPerfected
The Good News Press is a high quality digital printing company based in Essex. They run some unique machinery and are well established in the industry.

The challenge, the solution and the savings
Historically, printing has been one of the least environmentally friendly businesses. But Good News Press is an environmentally minded company. They offset all the carbon they are responsible for through Carbon Care and subscribe to ISO14001, FSC and PEFC. They saw the fitting of a powerPerfector unit as a further commitment to the environment and their sustainability as a responsible business. The office electrical load included lighting circuits, heating and ventilation systems and switch mode power supply devices. The press itself operates a number of induction motors. A 150KVA/220A unit was installed in 2007 with a –9% optimisation setting. See figures 1 and 2 for a before and after comparison.

Topline results
The enlightened attitude of Good News Press hasn’t just benefitted the environment. Savings relative to previous years have exceeded predictions. On top of this, the site’s equipment is running more efficiently as a result of improved phase balancing, reduced harmonics and optimised voltage. Equipment lifecycles will be extended too, giving valuable savings in the future. To install the powerPerfector unit, a scheduled shutdown of the site was required, with the work carried out over a weekend. Following installation, all electrical equipment has operated normally and there have been no reports of any problems. The powerPerfector requires no maintenance.

Voltage Power Optimisation. The less obvious benefits
Reduced maintenance, longer life
All electrical equipment has an optimum voltage at which it works best. A powerPerfected supply delivers that optimum and reduces the strain on your electrical equipment, leaving it to work more reliably and for longer.

Better quality power supply
Some things you may have accepted for years as product faults can turn out to be caused by a poor quality power supply. For instance, the life of incandescent light bulbs is almost doubled when the supply voltage is optimised. Now imagine that in relation to an IT network or an expensive piece of manufacturing equipment.

Missing the penalty kick
Power factor penalty charges – which are now uncapped in the UK – can be avoided if your power factor is above 0.95. If your power factor is at around 0.9 at the moment, powerPerfector could remove your exposure to these charges by improving the electrical efficiency of your site.

Lower harmonic distortion and reduced neutral currents
powerPerfectors are able to filter harmonics on the mains incomer. Harmonic distortion is on the increase and can lead to random failures of electronic equipment – particularly computers.

Protection
Transients – very brief spikes in voltage from the grid – of up to 25,000V are eliminated by powerPerfector. Transients at this level can cause catastrophic damage to equipment, but smaller, more common transient events will also shorten the life expectancy of electrical equipment over time.