A few days ago, I posted a link on Linkedin to a recent IEEE article on
U.S. electricity demand ( http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/us-electricity-demand-flat-since-2007/ ).
Domestic electricity per capita has been
flat since 2007. Much of this is attributed to energy efficiency efforts,
including legislation that raised the bar on acceptable, minimum efficiency
levels, including minimum efficiency of the largest consumer of electricity in
America; electric motors.
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), an international,
non-government, consensus based standards
organization founded in 1906, has established four levels of motor efficiency
to date.
Level IE1 was pretty much the worldwide de-facto standard
for motors operating under 690V around 1990. In 1992, the U.S led the way by adopting
IE2, effective in 1997. Followed, albeit slowly, by the rest of the world. By
2013 most of the world had adopted IE2.
Almost everyone in the U.S. is aware that legislation in 2007
raised electric lighting efficiency standards, ushering in the era of CFC and
LED lighting, but few know that the same legislation raised the bar again on
electric motor efficiency, to the IE3 level, effective in 2010. This time the
world was quicker to follow. By 2017 the IE3 minimum efficiency standard will
be the law of the land for new motors manufactured almost worldwide.
At the moment, there is no legislation in process anywhere
in the world to implement IE4. At least not yet. But there it sits as the
"holy grail" of motor efficiency. Many OEM's that use IE2 motors in
their products aren't waiting for legislation. In the pump, compressor or HVAC
worlds IE4 provides a significant competitive advantage over the IE2 motors
they now have to design out. As long as they have to pull out a white sheet of
paper, they might as well go IE4 if they can.
But IE4 technology can be expensive. Induction motor technology
alone can't get there without adding electronic drives, and not every induction
motor can be driven by an electronic drive. Permanent magnet technologies also need drives and have
the hidden variable cost and long supply chain of rare earth magnets. Switch reluctance
technology is so different from conventional motor and drive manufacturing that
a new manufacturing infrastructure must be built to provide them in volume, and
they can be noisy.
At the Motor and Drive 2015 conference in Orlando in
January, we at Digital Power Engineering introduced another solution. A technology
that takes a motor configuration that's been around for 120 years and is the
electric motor of choice above 400 HP, and makes it practical at low HP as a motor that
exceeds IE4 efficiency, has no magnets, requires no drive for single speed
operation and is compatible with contemporary motor manufacturing. If you or
anyone you know uses a motor above 200 watts in their product, they may already know about the need to shift to
IE3. Have them drop me an email at solutions@gboxllc.com and let's start the
conversation about an accessible IE4 solution that can provide them a significant competitive advantage.
