Consider this scenario: Firm A’s machinery comprises of 70% of motor and motor-driven equipment. Not only does the company end up with an astronomical utility bill, but they also face the probability of the equipment’s life span being shortened by quite a bit. What’s more, the firm also regularly lands up in trouble with legal and environmental authorities over its emissions.
What can Firm A do to overcome problems associated with its motor and motor-driven equipment?
Before we get to the answers, take into consideration a few energy related facts:
- The world consumed a total of 219 Trillion KWh electricity in 2015! It’s being projected that the figure will touch 2502 Trillion Kwh in the year 2020 and if the trend continues, a staggering 3517 Trillion Kwh by the year 2035!
- Industrial consumption accounts for at least 42% of such total electricity consumption, two-thirds of which is used just to power industrial motors.
In essence that would mean that electric motors are responsible for approximately 28% of the global electricity consumption. And we all know that electricity doesn’t come cheap! A back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that a 150 kilowatt pump motor running 6 days a week for 50 weeks uses around $75000 worth of electricity per year. Needless to say, energy savings is in high demand in the motor and motor-driven equipment area.
The Industrial Energy Challenge
As mentioned earlier, industrial applications (or more specifically electric motors) take the lion’s share as far as electricity consumption is concerned. In the European Union, for instance, they are estimated to account for about 70% of all industrial electricity consumption. As per recent estimates, currently around 300 million electric motors have already been installed worldwide with at least half of them in just USA, EU and China! This figure is estimated to go up by a minimum of 10% every year based on the economic growth of the countries. In other words, the higher the economic growth, the greater is the need for electric motors.
The U.S Department of Energy estimates that there is a humongous electricity consumption wastage of anywhere between 15% to 80% by motor-driven equipment. The wastage may relate either due to inefficiency in motor design or motor speed control, or even due to power quality. It’s also being estimated that approximately 90% of motors run continuously at full speed irrespective of the job involved and to make matters worse, use mechanical systems to regulate the output. This is akin to driving with the foot placed both on the brake and the accelerator at the same time. Similarly, purchasers might end up buying electric motor systems with a low first cost rather than investing in higher-efficiency options due to varied reasons such as budget constraints or lack of awareness.
What can be done?
Fortunately, technological advancement in this field has been quite considerable on this front. In fact, studies conducted by the D.O.E have shown that optimizing industrial motor systems through the implementation of mature, proven, cost-effective energy-saving techniques can reduce U.S. industrial energy costs up to $5.8 billion per year. It’s being predicted that such technology-aided energy efficiency measures can reduce consumption by up to 60%. For instance, the installation of a smart motor control system called as a variable speed drive in an electric motor alone can translate into a humongous savings in terms of electricity consumption.
Swedish-Swiss energy conglomerate ABB, which also happens to be a global leader in power and automation technologies, estimates that installing variable speed drives (which use only as much electricity as is needed for the job) in electric motors worldwide could save 1718 billion KWh. That roughly equals the power output of 286 nuclear reactors! Similarly, improvements in motor design can help increase efficiency of individual motors by up to 30%.
Governments are also doing their part by enacting legislations like EU’s efficiency legislation (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1399375464230&uri=CELEX%3A32012L0027) for instance, which is expected to speed up the adoption of these measures resulting in an estimated savings of 135 billion Kwh by the year 2020. That basically translates into enough energy to power the city of Los Angeles for almost two years or to run a German high speed ICE train at 300kmh for 1500 years!
What’s the hold up?
Despite the scope for tremendous long term cost savings, it has been found that more than 60% of businesses have not taken any proactive steps to improve energy efficiency within the past three years. The reasons vary from not having a companywide energy management system for energy tracking and optimization to not having a clear-cut financial case for such measures. But the fact of the matter is that energy efficiency pays for itself in 1 to 3 years. To top it all, such measures also help the businesses in complying with legal and environmental mandates in addition to extending the life of the equipment.
Circling back to Firm A’s situation, there is a strong case for a technology intervention to resolve various issues and get its motor and motor-driven system efficiency back on track. It can do so by exploring the various energy management solution options available in the market and that is where we at Motors@work can help.
If you are facing an energy situation similar to Firm A, contact us to schedule a free demo at info@motorsatwork.com. We look forward to assisting you.
References:
- S. Department of Energy: Motor Challenge Program. United States Industrial Electric Motor Systems Market Opportunities Assessment. Washington, DC: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 2002.
- ABB internal estimates