The rise in wholesale gas prices doesn’t just affect domestic users – commercial and industrial entities are all suffering from the same price increases in gas and electricity, and on a much larger scale. According to James Thomas, UK Water Industry Manager, ABB, reducing the energy usage of your electric motors can dramatically cut your bills, and help to insure against market volatility in the future.
Across the UK, many are baulking at the cost of their electricity and gas bills, and industrial enterprises are no different. For many companies trading conditions were already challenging, and a substantial hike in energy prices is the last thing that most of us need.
Ofgem has stated that both gas and electricity forward contract costs are more than double what they were a year ago, and for energy-intensive industries in particular this may well present an existential threat to their profitability.
Electric motors form the backbone of much of the UK’s industrial operations, and along with variable speed drive (VSD) systems account for 60 percent of the electricity demand within the sector. In light of the new price increases, ensuring that your motors are as energy efficient and resilient as possible can be an important step in helping your business to ride out these difficult times.
Improving the efficiency of motors even by a few percent can save huge amounts of energy, particularly when extrapolated to an installed base of dozens or even hundreds. Over the past decade, motor and drive technology has progressed significantly.
Indeed, as recently as a decade ago, the idea of IE5 efficiency was considered largely hypothetical, and yet the latest generation of ABB SynRM and VSD packages are now achieving unprecedented energy savings. Compared to an equivalent IE2 motor, a SynRM achieves 50 percent lower losses, while also providing superior performance and reliability, as well as significantly lower energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
The increase in energy costs has also, inadvertently, made the case for ultra-premium efficiency even more compelling. The more the cost of energy increases, the faster the payback time is for a motor. Upgrading the motor to a higher level of efficiency compounds this benefit, with investment often recouped within a matter of months.
SynRMs are also highly reliable and easy to maintain, helping to contribute towards operational resilience. SynRMs run more quietly than other motor types, and with a lower operating temperature, helping to prolong the life of bearings while reducing regreasing intervals.
Unlike a permanent magnet motor, ABB’s SynRM contains no rare earth minerals, and has no traditional rotor windings or permanent magnets. Consequently, a SynRM requires no specialist skills to maintain beyond that of a conventional induction motor.
Furthermore, repairing an old IE2 motor still leaves you with an IE2 motor level of efficiency. The performance of the motor will potentially decrease with every repair, with the risk of failure growing as the motor ages, leading to a much higher TOTEX cost compared to an equivalent new IE5 package.
There’s no doubt that there are challenging times ahead for us all, and things might well get worse before they get better. Fitting a VSD to an existing motor, or upgrading to an ultra-premium efficiency SynRM and VSD package, can save significant amounts money even in normal times.
In the midst of an energy and cost of living crisis, the potential for savings is set to increase even further. Now might well be the perfect time to look at how new motor technologies can help to improve resilience, and significantly reduce operating costs.
If you’d like more information about ABB’s SynRM offering then please contact me at james.thomas@gb.abb.com, or download our white paper here: www.energyefficiencymovement.com/wpcontent/uploads/2021/08/ABB_EE_WhitePaper_SynRM_IE5.pdf
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