Our primary technology for improving the performance of electric motors is 'Powerboss' – a range of variable torque drives from 3 hp to 1600 hp which lower motor operating temperatures and reduce energy consumption.

THE PROBLEM: AC motors including 'premium efficiency' motors are only efficient at, or close to full-load, but many motors are over-sized and typically operate well below full-load. For example, a motor operating below 50% of load can still draw 80-90% of its full-load power draw. This wasted energy takes the form of heat, noise and vibration - all of which reduce motor life and increase maintenance problems.

SOLUTIONS: Typically, engineers and maintenance staff use one or more of 4 possible solutions, all of which are designed to match the energy consumption of the motor more closely to its load. Note: when a motor is at full load, it needs all the energy it can get, so control systems need to be able to react very quickly (in milliseconds) to increases in load.

1. Motor Replacement. If the motor is old, it may have been built at a time when energy was cheap and energy efficiency was not a priority. Older motors can usually be replaced with newer, more efficient ones, including 'premium efficiency' motors. A careful analysis needs to be made to calculate the payback on such replacements.
2. Similarly, when energy efficiency was less important, motors were frequently over-sized, which caused them to operate at part-load for most of their lives.
3. Variable Speed Drives are designed to reduce the speed of a motor to match lighter loads and reduce the power-draw, but they will only work if the application can tolerate changes in speed - known as "variable-speed, variable load applications". A good example would be a pump where the speed can be reduced if less fluid needs to be pumped. A bad application would be a hydraulic system where very rapid changes in load require fast changes in response time.
4. A variable torque drive....
   

Powerboss, the culmination of 10 years' R&D in the field of optimum motor efficiency, uses the latest in micro-controller technology to monitor the load requirements (torque) of a motor, and then control its power-draw to exactly match that load 120 times a second.

Powerboss improves motor performance in 4 ways:

• A Soft-Start that is fully programmable and pays for itself over time
• Energy-savings whenever the motor load falls below 65% of full-load
• Cooler motor operation - typically more than 20 degrees cooler, which extends motor life and reduces maintenance & downtime
• Timed ‘switch-off’ provides 100% savings by switching equipment off if there is no activity for a (user-adjustable) period, e.g. during lunch hours or maintenance.

The nearest comparable technology is a Variable Speed Drive (also called Variable Frequency Drives or Voltage Inverters), which are designed to change the speed of a motor to match varying loads. By contrast, Powerboss is not used in variable speed applications, but is used in constant speed applications where the load is variable.

Resources:

- Understanding Power Bills (PDF)

- See our List of Projects

- See An Online Auction Demo (you must register to view this demo)