Product category:
Industrial Motors
News Release from: ABB Automation Tech (Drives and Motors) | Subject: High-efficiency motors
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 27 January 2005
Motors cut costs and maintenance
High-efficiency motors from ABB are saving a leading supplier of bakery products over GBP 10,000 a year in energy costs and a further GBP 5000 in spare parts.
High-efficiency motors from ABB are saving a leading supplier of bakery products over GBP 10,000 a year in energy costs and a further GBP 5000 in spare parts Cereform is the only manufacturer of soya flour in the UK and produces around 12,000 tonnes a year at its site in Royston
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Mar 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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It has some 120 motors on site and is gradually phasing out its older models in favour of high-efficiency alternatives.
Most recently, ABB Motor Service Partner, Heasell Electromechanical Services, supplied 18 high-efficiency AC motors from ABB to run nine flour mills.
Each mill uses two 22kW motors to turn the 80kg plates that grind the soya beans.
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The site runs 24 hours a day during the week and the old motors were causing a real maintenance headache.
"Failure of the old motors was a major concern and repairing them was a major cost", says Site Engineer Rory Perks.
He estimates that Cereform was spending around GBP 5000 a year on replacement parts associated with the old motors.
"Reliability is now excellent and the new motors are virtually maintenance free", he adds.
Perks also estimates that the 18 Eff1 motors are saving over GBP 10,000 a year in energy, thanks to their high-efficiency performance.
Eff1 is the highest efficiency category for motors sold in Europe.
EU officials estimate that replacing all the inefficient Eff3 motors now in use across the Union with standard-efficiency Eff2 versions would yield energy savings of 6TWh, or GBP 200 million a year.
Even higher savings would result from the increased use of the highest-efficiency, Eff1, motors.
High-efficiency motors are typically more reliable than low efficiency versions.
This is partly because they waste less energy as heat, which degrades the motor windings.
Windings are second only to bearings in terms of the number of breakdowns they cause.
Theoretically, a reduction of 10-15C in the running temperature will double the life of the winding.
The normal running temperature in high quality motors running at full load can be as low as 60-80C, whereas lower quality motors frequently run in excess of 90C.
According to Perks, the windings on Cereform's old motors didn't often fail completely, but when they did they had to be sent away to be rewound, which cost the plant GBP 1400 and several days of downtime.
Service and support were other important factors in Cereform's decision.
"I have received excellent service and support from Heasell over many years", says Perks.
"However, they still had to be very competitive on price".
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