Easy options for energy saving drives

A new range of services from Rockwell Automation makes it easy for companies to obtain maximum energy savings from the latest generations of drives.

A new range of services from Rockwell Automation Global Manufacturing Solutions makes it easy for companies of any size to obtain maximum benefit from the energy saving capabilities of the latest generation variable speed drives.

The first step is a free energy audit of the customer's plant.

After an assessment of the motors and drives currently being used, a full report is provided.

Aimed specifically at Energy and Financial Managers, the report identifies savings and takes account of the cost of borrowing, capital allowances and all other financial aspects to produce a business case over a five-year period.

The customer then has the choice of a fully configured drive solution or just the drive components with a further choice of four financial options.

Option one is to lease the equipment over five years with or without additional support services built in.

As the company never owns the equipment this is attractive to many companies, as the drives do not appear as fixed assets on the balance sheet and often can be financed out of an existing maintenance budget.

Option two is a lease purchase option, which is similar to option one but particularly attractive to companies that have the capital available.

As they own the equipment, the Energy Capital Allowance can be claimed, normally reducing the cost of the investment by 27%.

Option three is the "pay as you save" option.

Rockwell Automation installs the equipment at its expense and then shares the savings with the customer.

The only prerequisite is that an energy monitoring system such as the Allen-Bradley power monitor must be installed to measure the energy use before and after the installation.

Option four is "new for old".

Here the customer purchases new equipment at a substantial discount, replacing older variable speed drives with the latest technology to maximise the energy savings.

Many manufacturers are only now seeing the full impact of rising energy costs as a result of the introduction of the Climate Change Levy last April.

Others have negotiated discounts on electricity charges but in many cases these are dependent on the user making energy savings.

The new schemes from Rockwell Automation offer a simple, cost-effective solution to suit all businesses.

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