“We took the opportunity last year to measure the power used on some of our presses,” says Steve Ennew, technical director of MPartners. The machines getting the treatment were a number of RMGT presses, with and without LED UV, and the aim was to compare the energy needed by the Japanese presses and other machines that UK printers have.
A three-phase clamp was attached and measurements taken at standard running speeds, the power of ancillary equipment removed and an algorithm applied to generate a meaningful comparison over a full day of production or the shift pattern that that company used.
Where the official figures from Japan give a 40% saving on the RMGT 920 compared to a B1 press, effectively printing the same size sheet as SRA1 is comfortably the most commonly used sheet format in the UK. “We were finding that there was a 55% saving over B1,” he says. “When we then told people to calculate that in terms of the electricity bill, it made them sit up and look when it came out at £76k less a year.”
The RMGT 970, a cut down B1 machine rather than a beefed up B2, which will be centre stage at Drupa, uses more energy, but still less than others. If a B1 press is using 100kW, the RMGT 920 will consume 45kW. The RMGT 970 will be around 57kW, says Ennew.
In terms of drying, the figures collected have a B1 press with IR/hot air at 65kW; the SRA1 machine at 35kW. A standard UV set up will be rated at 100kW with an equivalent LED set up around 15kW.
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