Released on February 26, 2009

Ferrous sand caster Jencast, Coffeyville, Kan., recently received a grant that will help it improve the energy efficiency of its two electric melting furnaces.

The $250,000 grant, along with an $800,000 guaranteed loan, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide almost two-thirds of the $1.6 million the company will require to transition its two 3.5-ton/hour ferrous furnaces from single-phase melting to three-phase melting. Jencast, a division of Jensen International Inc., expects the move to almost triple its melt capacity and make it more flexible.

“We do heel melting, and we’re gray and ductile, so if we’re on ductile, we stay on it and then swing over to gray because of the expense of switching the heels,” said Eric Jensen, president. “When we get on three-phase, we won’t be limited to just running a block of ductile days and gray days.”

In order to receive the USDA grant, Jencast submitted the results of a survey conducted by Oklahoma State Univ. that indicated the new electrical system would save 32% on the company’s energy bills, a savings of about $300,000 per year. The company also believes the switch will save it $75,000-$100,000 on new materials and maintenance costs.

“Power comes in three phases on industrial electric,” said metalcasting engineer Gerald Robertson. “Single phase only uses two of those phases, which creates an imbalance in your electrical system. The electric company puts in a tap changer to try to balance the electric, but it still causes your motors and light bulbs to fail prematurely.”

Jencast has begun laying the groundwork for the installation, but the heavy lifting won’t come until its summer shutdown in August. Aug. 6 will be the company’s last day of production; when it comes back on Aug. 25, one furnace will be operational. By Aug. 30, it expects the second furnace to be back online.

“It’s going to take a whole new cooling tower, all new water piping, a whole transformer and new electrical power lines,” Robertson said. “We’re going to tear the old furnaces down to the metal shell, and everything will be brand new.”

When the project is fully complete, the metalcaster will be capable of producing twice the castings it makes now.

“Right now we have two green sand molding lines and basically we have to run a line per shift,” Jensen said. “It will give us the capacity to run both molding lines on one shift. With the economy the way it is, we don’t need the capacity right now, but we’re forward thinking and believe the industry will come back out of it in a year or two.”