Assessment of the Market for Compressed Air Efficiency Services

Compressed Air Market AssessmentThe PG&E study found that 63% of its customers had made no attemptsto upgrade their system’s efficiency in the 3 years prior to the study.Table 2-14 provides details of the findings from the 1998 Motor MarketAssessment. Leak repair accounts for most of the measures implemented.Larger facilities were more likely than average to implement thesemeasures. However, this pattern was not entirely consistent across sizeor measure categories.Purchase of System Maintenance ServicesService Contracts. Overall, 30% of customers to the Compresssed AirMarket Assessment reported that they had service contracts for theircompressed air systems. The proportion of establishments with servicecontracts for CA systems did not vary substantially by industry nor bysize of establishment. Among establishments with service contracts,83% purchased those services from compressed air equipment vendors.The remaining 17% were serviced by consultants and contractorsother than the company’s principal compressed air equipment vendor.Only one-third ofcustomers with servicecontracts reportedthat they receivedefficiency-orientedservices.The study’s questionnaire asked customers to name the specific servicesprovided under their service contracts. Table 2-15 shows the results ofthis set of questions. The results indicate that most compressed air systemservice contracts are oriented primarily towards preventive maintenanceof the compressors and auxiliaries. Only one-third of customers withservice contracts (10% of the total list) reported that they receivedefficiency-oriented services such as leak detection, leak repair, assessmentof control strategies, energy use monitoring, and load profiling.Effectiveness of Service Contracts. Given the emphasis of servicecontracts on preventative maintenance, one potential index of theireffectiveness would be the incidence of compressed air system breakdownsand operating problems. We examined the association betweenthe use of service contracts and reported system problems. The proportionof customers reporting unscheduled system downtime was virtuallythe same for those with and without service contracts: 38%. Table 2-16displays the percent of customers in both groups who experiencedvarious system operating problems. While there are small differencesbetween the 2 groups in the portion of customers who experiencedcompressed air system operating problems, these differences are notstatistically significant. 2Awareness and Use of Compressed AirSystem Efficiency ServicesInterest in Efficiency Services. Part of this assessment was designedto capture information from customers on the extent to which vendorsare marketing their efficiency services and the content of those offers.Thirty-four percent of those interviewed reported that they had beenapproached by vendors selling “services specifically designed to reduceenergy costs in your compressed air systems.” Fifty-eight percent of thecustomers who were offered efficiency services were approached bycompressed air equipment vendors. Another 39% were approached by24U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY2 Applied the Chi-square test.