AVL Manufacturing Inc.™
For nearly 20 years, AVL Manufacturing has provided turnkey manufacturing and assembly solutions for customers in multiple sectors throughout North America, including the oil and gas industry. The company has become one of Canada’s largest privately owned engineering, manufacturing and assembly facilities, and CEO Vince DiCristofaro says the company continues to find ways to serve new markets through its innovative products and services.
Originally founded as Hamilton Metal Works in 1998, AVL Manufacturing today is part of The AVL Group of Companies. Whereas the company’s initial focus was on large custom fabrications and machining, the AVL Manufacturing of today incorporates a full slate of services, including full assembly, engineering, project management and single-source supply chain services. From its dual fabrication facilities in Hamilton, Ontario, AVL Manufacturing delivers products including custom enclosures and oilfield components in a state-of-the-art environment with extensive collaboration with its customers.
In recent years, AVL Manufacturing has introduced new products that aim the company and its capabilities to new areas of the marketplace and new customers. For example, the company introduced the ONEPOWER line in 2008 for the emergency management and construction markets. The modular and portable units can help customers with applications ranging from water purification to HVAC to power distribution.
Diversification is a critical component of AVL Manufacturing’s strategy moving forward, and the introduction of its newest line of products, the ECO-H Hybrid Power Management System, demonstrates the company’s commitment to becoming a more diverse and capable manufacturer for its customers.
As sources such as wind and solar become a larger segment of the energy mix, ECO-H offers a more efficient solution for energy storage for the industrial and commercial markets.
Efficient Technology
ECO-H Technologies Inc.™ is the energy storage division of The AVL Group of Companies, with AVL Manufacturing providing all manufacturing of the company’s products. ECO-H was founded in 2012 and focuses on integrating lithium-ion batteries with its’ proprietary, patented power management system capable of storing energy generated by devices such as generators, wind turbines or solar arrays.
“In essence, the technology is similar to a Tesla car or a Toyota Prius, but much larger and on an industrial scale,” Trask explains.
According to the company, the ECO-H technology provides significant efficiency benefits to the end-user thanks to the proprietary technology developed by The AVL Group of Companies. “The ECO-H system load-levels the generators by analyzing the rig’s site load,” the company explains. “ECO-H processes the information through proprietary algorithms and either discharges to the AC bus bar or absorbs the excess onset power. This process happens instantaneously, 24/7, and allows the [generators] to run more efficiently. The sharp peaks and valley power spikes become smoother-rolling hills.”
Trask says the benefits of the ECO-H system are especially evident in the oil and gas sector, where a drilling rig can be operated with fuel savings of up to 20 percent when used in conjunction with an ECO-H system. This is because the ECO-H batteries can keep the generators on a drilling rig operating within their most efficient range. Most generators operate more efficiently above 60 percent load and the ECO-H system can store excess power to be delivered later during times of peak demand, generators ultimately will use less fuel and give off fewer emissions. In some applications generators can be resized or the number of generators reduced as an additional savings.
Tom Schledwitz, CEO of Exciter Energy Services, says, “I first experienced the ECO-H system last year and am pleased to incorporate the ECO-H Hybrid Power Management System into my fleet of new urban green rigs. Moving the energy services industry towards greener technology is important not only to the environment but to bottom-line results.”
Trask is excited to be working once again with Schledwitz and the Exciter Energy Team. He worked closely with them in a previous role and says, “Tom and his team are innovative and push the envelope when it comes to incorporating new technology that reduces noise, emissions, and the environmental impact of their rigs.”