AmbiRad's Radiant Heaters Achieve an 80% Reduction in Fuel Consumption at Volvo

Volvo is world renown for its environmental consciousness, recently established a corporate goal to make all of its manufacturing facilities carbon neutral by 2012.  Additionally Volvo trucks have the U. S. Department of Energy Industrial Technologies Save Energy Now LEADER initiative which requires manufacturers to reduce their facilities energy intensity by 2.5% per year over a 10 year timeframe.

AmbiRad installed  60 High Efficiency VSX heaters in Volvo's Truck's NRV plant shipping building, replacing their warm air system.  The building is an ideal choice for radiant heating with it's high ceilings and high air change, as the radiant heater have a very quick response time.

The radiant heaters resulted in a headline 80% reduction in natural gas consumption, but the complete performance can be summarised as:

• Saving  61,000 therms natural gas per year.
• Saving 70,000 kWh electricity per year
• Saving  54 tons CO2 per year
• Saving $45,000-$50,000 per year
• Payback period 2.5 years

For details of this project please see the Volvo case study at the Department of Energy website.

High Efficiency Tube Heater Save over $1.5m at Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant

In an effort to reduce energy consumption and improve employee comfort Chrysler sought an economical and effective solution to their problems. Consulting with the client to insure their needs were met 41 Ambirad radiant tube heaters were installed above the dock doors at Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant (JNAP).  This solution succeeded in reducing the company’s energy consumption by over $1.5m annually.

JNAP were concerned by the excessive energy costs of the heaters they were incurring by operating direct fired air heaters to maintain comfortable temperatures in their loading docks. During the winter heating season these door heaters operated 24hrs/day from October 7th through May 1st (206 days x 24hrs=4,944 hrs).

AmbiRad’s replace 38 direct fired heaters with 42 infrared radiant tube heaters and also installed new thermostatic controls, in 10 dock areas.

In summary, the energy savings achieved amounted to $1.8m of natural gas (an 85% reduction) and the payback on the project was a remarkable 2 months!

I would like to thank Larry Workens, Sr. Energy Engineer,who independantly measured the energy savings achieved by this project.