Saving both money and the environment are not mutually exclusive. More companies are learning that energy efficiency hardware can grow on trees

A sales rep introduces a scenario: you let a company install their product in your home/office/development for free, and they guarantee that you will save money. A no-lose proposition? It appears that Aikoh has made it that simple. With their two products, the Epoch 21 and the Epoch 33, electricity bills can be reduced by up to 10%. The savings are split 50/50, so the customers are saving money with absolutely no extra work or expense on their parts.

Aikoh Electric Corporation’s Mr Kunio Shimazu invented the Epoch 21 after studying the consumption of electricity in the Japanese market. Power companies there have been encouraging consumers to conserve, as approval for new power plants is difficult to obtain. Taxation of existing systems was creating outages and other repercussions of overuse. Also, the Japanese government determined it sound to reduce dependence on imported fuel. In response to these factors, Mr Shimazu developed a new concept, radically different from conventional theories on saving electrical usage. A world patent is still pending.

Epoch 21

Shimazu’s research addressed three key elements of power usage: limiting the maximum flow, restraining momentary current, and removing higher harmonic waves. The impetus for this focus was the billing structure of the power companies. Consumers will always be charged the highest rate. What this means, eg, is that a housing development with three phases will be monitored by phase, using standard power meters. The phase which consumes the most power will be used as the model for all three phases’ consumption (highest amount x 3). Well, the proof is in the putting, as it were, so Aikoh set about proving that energy consumption and bills could be reduced, all packaged around the 4 basic principles:

1. To reduce the voltage to an acceptable level to save power, with the added bonus of increasing the life of electrical appliances.
2. To balance the power (both voltage and current) on the supply side, therefore, the maximum demand of the power side is lowered.
3. To increase the power factor.
4. Because of the power saved, there will be more capacity for the breaker for additional installation purposes.

The Epoch 21 was first put into service in Hong Kong at the Seibu department store and has been shaving about 17% off their US$50,000 monthly electricity bills since 1995.

Epoch 33 The Intelligent Controller

The latest system to be developed, the Epoch 33, is a high efficient control unit for use with 3 phase induction motors. An inverter reads electric current values, then reads voltage values, while sensor feedback is read. Finally, the frequency is determined by calculating the difference between the sensor value and target value. The resulting frequency value is sent to the inverter, and voltage is recalculated.

This device is used as a intelligent controller installed next to the inverter to any motor plant such as water pump, blower and fans. The inverter of a specific motor is adjusted and controlled to run at the most efficient and economic way to use the power. All unnecessary wastage of power usage is subsequently eliminated.

If all of this sounds confusing, let’s make it simple: the power company registers a lower level of usage and your bills go down. In layman’s terms, this happens because the level of energy sucked into your appliances is flattened, or slowed. When the flattened current is sent back round on the circuit, it is read by the power company as less energy. Load fluctuations are controlled by the Aikoh system also, so that only the appropriate level of energy is sent into your environment.

The Epoch 21 unit is best suited to power savings on lamp and power circuits; while the Epoch 33 improves the efficiency of energy production by controlling target loads, setting them at specific amounts and minimizing energy losses that might otherwise create fluctuations in load torque. Currently available in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – as well as Japan, where they are manufactured – these systems offer a lot of bang for the buck.

A major developer such as Sun Hung Kai Properties could save roughly US$120,000 per year on one large sized shopping mall, using the Epoch 21 system alone. Should they adopt the Epoch 21 systems throughout their property portfolio the savings would be in excess of US$4 million per year. This would translate to an increase in capitalisation of US$48 million of their listed stock.

For a more elaborate and technical description of how these systems operate, and how they can benefit your company, use the business reply card on the wrapper of this magazine for details. Energy saving isn’t only financially economical: reducing the amount of energy generated in our environment will have longer reaching benefits than annual reductions in costs.