CASE STUDY:

PROXYVAR INSTALLATION

ACE DISPOSAL

COMPANY OVERVIEW:

Ace Disposal is one of the largest independent waste and recyclable haulers in the western United States.  The owner and his son own and operate the business with 200 employees, running approximately 100 trucks per day. ACE is a very environmentally conscious company.  Almost all of their trucks run on natural gas and they maintain in-house natural gas compression and dispensing stations. They have also installed on their buildings and parking structures one of the largest privately held solar systems in the state of Utah.

THE PROBLEM:

After seeing disappointing results from the solar installation, ACE asked PROXYEM to do an evaluation of their power system, including the solar array.  PROXYEM found that their 280KW system was generating the promised amount of DC power but actual AC power implementation was lower than expected. Additionally, power factor and demand penalties had increased since the installation of the solar system. Finally, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) throughout their power system had increased creating inefficiencies in their primary transformer and increasing overall system heat. The resulting actual power bill net savings were less than 30% of what was promised by the company that had sold and installed the solar arrays. It is understandable that

they were considering having the solar removed and demanding a refund of their costs.

THE PROXYEM SOLUTION:

PROXYEM installed an appropriately sized PROXYVAR system in parallel at the main distribution panel. The intent was three-fold:

       1. to correct system-wide power factor issues,

       2. to supplement the solar inverter KW with  electromagnetically backed VAR, and

       3. to mitigate harmful harmonic currents in the power system.

RESULTS:

On the day it was commissioned, Ace saw a significant improvement in power factor as well as a 30% reduction in harmonic distortion as shown on Fluke 435 power quality meters. Transformer noise and system heat also dropped. These improvements allowed the solar power production to be more efficiently utilized inside the facility. In the first month after installation, net metered power production almost tripled. The following chart shows average monthly consumption for 3 months before and 3 months after PROXVAR installation as reflected on the utility bills.