Compressed Air and Compressor Monitoring
Compressed air is the most expensive utility on most sites, and usually the least measured. We monitor the compressor house in kilowatts, cubic metres and bar.
Live
The compressor house on one card
Power, pressure and flow in the same second. Specific energy (kWh/m³) is calculated continuously; the cost of a cubic metre of air is priced at your tariff and written down.
The idling ratio measures the time the compressor is off load while the motor still turns; the power drawn in that time does not become air, it becomes a bill. The card also writes that share in pounds, so “is the compressor efficient” is answered with a percentage and an amount.
- Set pressure and the actual pressure band
- Load / unload ratio and the cost of idling
- Live comparison against the datasheet
The card is fed by each compressor’s own analyser and the flow meter on its discharge line; on multi-room sites a room selector keeps each room’s set pressure separate. Values refresh every minute, and the strip below the card summarises the last 24 hours.
Compressed Air
live · sample plant7,4bar
set 7.0 · 7.5
Compressor discharge pressure · within the set band
Leakage
If production stops and flow does not, the difference is leakage
Air produced at weekends and between shifts is measured in automatic windows. That is a direct measurement of total leakage, not an estimate.
- “Empty-factory load”: how much is leaking
- Flow meters per line: where it is leaking
- Timed manual leak test with an archive
You can also start a test by hand: the timed leak test runs while production is stopped, compares the result with earlier tests and files it. A stopped machine’s flow is not counted as leakage; a line with a suspect sensor is flagged and kept out of the estimate.
Leakage Curve
weekend · flow and productionSchematic: window automatic; production signal from the PLC or the line analyser.
Lines
Leakage with an address: which line, how many cubic metres an hour
Flow meters on the main lines split leakage by branch. Maintenance gets an address instead of “the factory is leaking”.
Line names come in the order they were defined on the panel; clicking a row opens that line’s 24-hour pressure and flow curve. The leak column is the average flow outside the production window; a line over its threshold turns red and lands on the maintenance list.
- Pressure drop (ΔP) per line in the same table
- The total row is cross-checked against the main-line flow meter
- The report arrives by e-mail every morning
Production Lines
last 24 h| Line | Pressure bar | Flow m³/h | Share % | Leak m³/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LINE-1 | 6.81 | 154 | 13.2 | 41 |
| LINE-2 | 6.81 | 232 | 19.8 | 12 |
| LINE-3 | 6.91 | 47 | 4.1 | 7 |
| LINE-5 | 6.79 | 88 | 7.5 | 63 |
| MIX | 6.73 | 120 | 10.3 | 9 |
| Total | 1,147 | 100.0 | 263 |
Datasheet
Where does your compressor sit against its datasheet?
Real performance is not installed power but energy per cubic metre delivered. The manufacturer’s figure is scaled to your set pressure; the deviation is written as a percentage.
- Pressure-corrected datasheet comparison
- Behaviour above 70% load tracked separately
- Evidence for a maintenance request: figure and period
Datasheet figures are entered when the machine is defined; the manufacturer’s columns for different pressures are scaled to the set pressure. The deviation is kept as a percentage and tracked against load: if the same machine jumps above 70% load, the cooling or oil side is the suspect.
Datasheet Comparison
specific energy · kWh/m³- Impetus 132 0.152kWh/m³ 45% above the datasheet
- Impetus 90 0.111kWh/m³ inside the band
- Komser 100A 0.104kWh/m³ 2% below the datasheet
What we measure, and from where
Measurement plate
- Active power
- kW
- Separate analyser per compressor · Modbus RTU
- Flow
- m³/h
- Compressor outlet and each main line
- Pressure
- bar
- Outlet and the furthest point of use
- Load / unload
- state
- Compressor operating regime
- Specific energy
- kWh/m³
- Derived · scaled to set pressure
- Pressure drop
- ΔP bar
- Derived · between two pressure points
Common questions
We already have a monitoring system. What would change?
Most monitoring systems show energy consumption. In a compressor house the question is not consumption but how much air was produced for that consumption. Without flow and pressure you cannot calculate specific energy, cannot size the leak, and cannot benchmark against the datasheet. If your existing system has no flow meter, that gap is exactly the difference.
How much saving do you guarantee?
We do not promise a figure before measuring. The potential in a compressor house varies enormously with leak rate, set pressure, the age of the machines and how they are sequenced. What we do is fixed: measure first, recommend from the measurement, then verify the result once the change is made. The number comes from your data, not from our brochure.
Does this help with ESOS compliance?
Monitoring is not an ESOS assessment in itself, that has to be signed off by an approved lead assessor. What it does is remove the hardest part of the work. An assessment needs twelve months of energy data, and the scheme now expects an action plan followed by reporting on progress against it. Both of those need measurement you can stand behind. The alternative route is full ISO 50001 certification covering your energy use, which the same measurement layer supports. The Phase 4 compliance deadline is 5 December 2027, and the qualifying data has to already exist by then.
Where is our data held?
In Finland, inside the European Economic Area, in an ISO/IEC 27001 certified data centre. The UK recognises the EEA as adequate, so personal data moving from the UK needs no additional transfer safeguards. Panel and API traffic runs over TLS; measurement data from site arrives over TLS-protected MQTT. Authorisation is two-layered, by role and by site. Backups are daily and retained for 30 days. The data belongs to you: on request we export it in a machine-readable format or delete it permanently, and it is never shared with third parties or used in another customer's analysis. One point we would rather state than have you find: our support team works from Türkiye, which is a restricted transfer under UK GDPR, an International Data Transfer Agreement covers it. The full position is on our security page.
Can it run on our own infrastructure?
Yes. The platform can run on your own server or on a separate appliance we supply. In that model measurement and production data never leaves your network: no inbound ports are opened and all connections are outbound only. We decide the deployment model together.
Would we have to replace our compressors?
No. The system is installed around the compressors you already have and monitors them. That is rather the point, to see where the existing system is losing air before committing to new plant. On most sites the first gains come from leaks and pressure, not from a new machine.
Let us measure what is happening on your site.
In a one-hour call we look at your existing setup and set out exactly which measurement points are needed and what you would be able to see.