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COTTON FARMING IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE GINNING INDUSTRY.
Try To Minimize Gin’s Electricity Costs Predictions of increasing electricity costs seem to be constantly appearing from multiple angles. There are a number of environmental regulations that will potentially limit the number of new power plants and may cause some existing plants to shut down. In many parts of the country, there are also capacity issues, such as aging power lines, and lines that are simply not being upgraded quickly enough to meet the load growth in a given area. Reliability issues are a reality, as is the challenge of meeting ever-increasing demands for energy. These larger issues are typically addressed by your trade associations and business groups. What can an individual cotton gin manager do to help offset and/or control electricity costs? One of the biggest items an individual can do is review and understand the actual power usage at your gin. In Texas, we conduct an annual cost survey. One of the most important questions in the survey, in my opinion, relates to how many kilowatt-hours the plant used during the year. Most ginners tell me they prefer to look at how much their electricity costs per bale, and this is an important number. The problem is this number is a reflection of how much energy you used, combined with how much your electricity costs. The cost of electricity is generally a function of your power company, while how much power you use is a function of how your gin is operating. In my opinion, you should look at each of these items separately. Over the last 10 years, the energy use in Texas has varied from a statewide average of 40.92 kWh/bale to 47.9 kWh/bale. In the last four years, our highest statewide average energy use has been 44.81 kWh/bale. This is an important number to compare, as it reflects the actual amount of energy your plant used to gin your crop. While the statewide averages are pretty consistent from year to year, the range each year can easily go as low as 30 kWh/bale and as high as 70 kWh/bale. If you don’t know your gin’s usage number, take a few minutes and do the math. If your gin is averaging 45 kWh/bale or less, you are probably in pretty good shape. On the other hand, if you are using 50 to 70 kWh/bale to gin your crop (or more), you may want to conduct a review of your operation.
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Stover Unwrapper GIS
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Crop condition will obviously affect this number, so cut yourself some slack if you had a very poor crop. This would include crops where a good bit of the cotton was wet or green, which slows the gin, and very low production crops where the gin is started and stopped more often than normal. Downtime can have a big impact, so factor this in, as well. Once crop condition and downtime are calculated, determining the next steps can be more elusive. Fan systems are often a major contributor. Be sure your fan systems are all moving the proper amount of air and are properly sized. Gins with fewer, more thoroughly utilized fan systems seem to have a greater chance of operating on less than 40 kWh/bale. The final factor is easy to say, but sometimes much harder to implement. A given gin will use about the same amount of energy to run at full speed as it will to run at partial speed. Keeping your plant running consistently close to its rated capacity as possible will go a long way toward getting your usage down to that low 40 kWh/bale goal.
Cotton Gin Brushes
Our precision CNC fabricating equipment enables us to produce the highest quality gin brushes and channel saws at a very competitive price. When it comes to our products, we use only the highest quality “Made in the USA� raw materials available. We know gin machinery and the conditions in which it has to perform, and our brushes and channel saws are manufactured to an exacting standard for the modern cotton gin.
Kelley Green of the Texas Cotton Ginners Association contributed this article. Contact him at the TCGA office in Austin, Texas, at kelley@tcga.org or (512) 476-8388.
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RAM Manufacturing Company 1333 E. 44th St. Lubbock, TX 79404 806-745-5552 Fax: 806-745-5582 rammfgco@rammfg.net www.rammfg.net
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COTTON FARMING MARCH 2015
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Physical Address: 225 Bourne Boulevard • Savannah, Georgia 31408-9586 USA Mailing Address: P.O. Box 929 • Pooler, Georgia 31322-0929 USA Phone: (912) 447-9000 • Fax: (912) 447-9250 Toll Free (USA Only): 1-800-4LUMMUS (1-800-458-6687) Web Site: www.lummus.com • E-mail: lummus.sales@lummus.com ®
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32 COTTON FARMING
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