Studies have shown that electric drives consume up to 70% of the total energy consumption of industry. This is not only an important cost factor, but also means a large potential for optimization and energy savings.
NORD Drivesystems, for example, offers up to 10,000 drive systems for different intralogistics and baggage handling projects. The energy consumption of gear motors with a power range of less than 5.5 kW is not particularly high, and the purchase cost is moderate. However, if you take into account the operating time of the drive as well as the accumulated life cycle costs, there is a huge potential for energy savings.
Drives for intralogistics systems often involve multiple shifts, and if an installation performance of around 0.75 kW is based, the electrical energy requirements of a single drive system can rival the power consumption of a single household. As a result, the power consumption of the conveyor technology of a complete intralogistics or baggage handling system can quickly be equal to the total electricity consumption of a company. Given the urgency of decarbonisation, action is inevitable.
Cost drivers
In the age of climate change, project sustainability is critical to public image. The investment cost of the drive system accounts for only 15% of the total life cycle cost, while the later 85% of the cost involves energy costs, management costs, service and maintenance costs, training and documentation, personnel costs, spare parts inventory, etc. Operators should consider the sustainability and life cycle costs of new systems and conduct energy audits of existing systems to identify optimization points. NORD engineers provide comprehensive support from the planning phase to ensure a good drive design that takes into account economic considerations.
The perfect balance between efficiency and cost
NORD's new generation of IE5+ motor designs focuses on the intralogistics industry. The compact synchronous motor consistently delivers high efficiency over a wide torque range and achieves good energy consumption even in part of the load zone and part of the speed range. Comparing a conventional IE3 asynchronous motor (0.75 kW, motor efficiency 83%, bevel geared motor) with the corresponding IE5+ synchronous motor (0.75 kW, motor efficiency 93%, bevel geared motor), a CO2 emission factor of 366 g/kWh for 16 hours per day (4000 hours per year) saves about 11%, which equates to a saving of 400 kWh and 0.15 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
Due to the efficient use of materials and the compact installation space, the weight of the IE5+ synchronous motor is optimized by more than 50% compared to the IE3 asynchronous motor for the same power range. NORD Drives supplies IE5+ synchronous motors with a power range from 0.35 to 4.0 kW and motor efficiencies of up to 95% in both TEV and TEFC versions.
In addition, smaller, lighter motors reduce transportation costs and therefore have a lower environmental impact. The aforementioned 0.75 kW motor weighs about 10 kg in the IE3 version, while the corresponding IE5+ motor weighs only about 6 kg. If one IE5+ motor were to be delivered from Hamburg to Stuttgart instead of one IE3 motor, the CO2 emissions of each motor would be reduced by around 120 grams. Considering the scale of up to 10,000 drives in the system and the worldwide delivery of drive systems from NORD, this shows that motors belonging to the high-efficiency product family not only contribute directly to sustainability by reducing energy consumption, but also indirectly contribute to sustainability due to their smaller size and lighter weight.
Next step: 2-in-1
The fewer interfaces, the more efficient the system. That's why NORD now offers a revolutionary drive motor, the DuoDrive, which features a hygienic wash-down design, an IE5+ synchronous motor and a single-stage helical gear unit in a single housing. As a system, the compact DuoDrive concept achieves significantly higher energy efficiency than the aforementioned drive systems with IE5+ synchronous motors and bevel gear units. DuoDrive currently offers the highest system efficiency in this power category on the market at up to 92% and achieves high efficiency in the partial-load range.