Energy saving is a big topic of discussion across all industries with some seeing an increase in bills of 800%. We all are becoming more conscious of how to save energy and costs; how can we reduce the impact on your cost of sales?

Electric motors are responsible for 70% of electrical energy consumption in industrial sectors. These motors are critical to your process and keep production going, from pumps moving different mediums, to fans moving air to compressors, and conveyors moving products along.

 Can your electric motor save you money?

The simple answer is no they can’t! However, controlling your electric motors is crucial not only to your process but helps reduce energy consumption which reduces your costs.

It makes sense that if we reduce the speed of a conveyor by 10%, we reduce energy consumption by 10%. In a lot of cases, simple mechanical changes such as changing a pulley make it possible to reduce the running speed of the motor. The biggest constraint is that most motors do not use VFDs, which makes it impossible to vary the speed.

Many applications rely on throttle valves and dampers to control pressure and flow, I wonder how much energy could be saved by simply reducing the fan or pump speed.

According to cube law reducing the speed of a pump or fan by a small amount you can significantly reduce your energy consumption. for example, if you were able to run a pump or a fan to 90% of its nominal speed you would reduce your energy consumption by approximately 27%.

Although we all know that this is only a theoretical indication, I think you will agree that if you are looking for ways to reduce your energy cost this would be a great place to start.

Imagine the energy saving if we opted to reduce a fan speed instead of using a damper to control flow.

Other ways to improve the energy saving to your process:

• Maintain your existing Drives – not only the prolong life of your drive it could increase productivity and reduce costs.
• Make sure to replace older drives.
• Talk to a VDR specialist engineer
• Don’t just install a new drive – work with your VDR engineer to make sure you have the best solution for your process.
• All modern drives save energy.

Finally, don’t forget equipping your process with variable speed drives not only save energy but improves profitability by reducing maintenance costs which further reduces your manufacturing cost.