Product category:
Industrial Motors
News Release from: WEG Electric Motors (UK) | Subject: TRW Pontypool
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 18 March 2002
High-efficiency motors save for TRW
Pontypool
TRW Pontypool has an ongoing programme to replace standard electric motors in its plant with high-efficiency types, including W21 Premium motors from WEG UK.
The added burden imposed upon UK manufacturing companies by the Climate Change Levy is resulting in much increased electricity bills Everywhere companies are seeking to offset this increase by improving efficiency in the way in which they use and consume energy
One company, TRW Pontypool, is addressing the problem with an ongoing programme to replace standard electric motors in its plant with high efficiency types, including W21 Premium motors from WEG UK.
The savings from this programme, based on an exceptional operating regime of over 8000h, can be over GBP 200 per motor per annum.
With the relevant ECA allowance this means that payback will be under one year.
Thereafter the long-term savings from more efficient running will provide a major contribution to offsetting TRW's savage six-figure increase in energy costs as a result of the CCL.
TRW Pontypool is one the largest suppliers of automotive brake parts to the global vehicle market, supplying such major manufacturers as Renault, Peugeot, Nissan and Rover, to mention but a few.
Although extremely successful in its markets, TRW is only too aware of the unrelenting competitive pressures on automotive component suppliers, pressures which the Climate Change Levy is now adding to.
Like many companies, TRW is attacking its increased costs with a best practice energy efficiency programme, aimed at reducing energy consumption by 10% over the next three years.
Recently, as part of this programme Steve Gray, Maintenance Supervisor at the Pontypool Plant, attended an energy efficiency seminar, organised by one of WEG's major UK distributors BSL.
The seminars, run by BSL Business Manager, Gary Price, are proving to be an invaluable tool in advising industry about the practical ways in which energy can be saved and used more efficiently.
At the Welsh seminar Gary Price outlined the typical savings, which TRW could expect to achieve by replacing their standard squirrel cage motors with W21 type motors from WEG's high efficiency range.
The figures, which compared best and worst case running costs of a typical 11kW two-pole motor, revealed that savings of over GBP 200 per motor per annum could be achieved by using WEG's Premium EEF 1 motors.
These units, from WEG's W21 range, only meet all CEMEP standards for energy saving, but exceed them by a substantial margin.
The illustrated savings were good enough to convince Steve Gray to standardise upon high efficiency motors at the Pontypool Plant.
To minimise disruption to production, the plant's existing squirrel cage motors are not all being replaced overnight.
Rather, they are being changed progressively, when breakdowns occur, or when monitoring shows that motor wear is excessive.
Happily for Steve Gray, motor breakdowns are not a serious problem.
"We are able to get such a good turn around on new WEG motors as little as 3h in breakdown situations during normal working hours - from the local BSL branch at Newport that it pays us to buy new motors rather than have existing ones rewound as they show signs of wear or fail unexpectedly".
To date, TRW have installed approximately 18 WEG EEF 1 motors in such applications as AC fan and pump drives and machine tool drives.
Some of the motors have been in operation continuously for 7 months, in one instance driving an external cooling tower pump in really atrocious conditions.
The reliability of the WEG Premium Motor in this application gives lie to the belief, in some quarters, that high efficiency motors are not as robust or as reliable as their standard equivalents.
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