Tuesday, July 15, 2014

SEP (ISO 50001) and Motor Driven Systems

Introduction

Today over 24 trillion kWhs of electricity is consumed worldwide. This is projected to grow to 39 trillion kWhs by 2040.  There are over 350 million motors in use in industry, infrastructure and large facilities which consume over 6.75 trillion kWhs or a little over 1 out of every 4 kWh generated in the world is consumed by electric motors and driven systems. Typically, motors and driven systems consume in excess of 65% of an industrial sites’ electrical energy (approx. 30% in commercial facilities). In primary manufacturing, process loads predominate and motor driven systems may constitute more than 90% of a site’s electrical consumption. The motor driven consumption will continue to increase proportionate to the electricity consumption projections represented in the 30 million electric motors sold annually today for replacement and new applications, which as a market, is projected to grow at 19.67% over the next 5 years. Conservatively by 2040 we will be looking at over 600 million electric motors in use in the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) sectors consuming over 13.5 trillion kWhs.  At $.1 per KWh this is equivalent to $1.35 trillion per year. Of this motor-driven equipment consumption the D.O.E estimates that 15% to 80% of the motor-driven energy consumed is wasted. 


Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Your Motor Efficiency Program - Step 1

Image courtesy of twobee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
While working with a customer recently, we were able to extract 240 motors from their CMMS system (in this case Datastream/Infor's MP2) and load them into Motors@Work.  These motors account for 26660 total hp.  Roughly estimating that these motors run 2000 hours per year at $.05/kWh, the customer could save $233,980.71 per year with a 10% increase in efficiency.  We feel this is very achievable – given that the D.O.E. estimates 20%-30% potential savings, that overall pumping systems can be considered in future phases, and that the majority of the customer's motors are standard efficiency.  Standard efficiency motors are typically 4% to 7% less efficient than premium efficiency (even more difference when considering super premium efficiency).

So how do we get there?

Monday, June 30, 2014

Iowa Water/Wastewater Operators lead the way in pursuit of D.O.E. Superior Energy Performance Certification

Iowa Water/Wastewater Operators lead the way in pursuit of D.O.E. Superior Energy Performance Certification Des Moines, Iowa - June 25th, 2014 The City of Des Moines Water Reclamation Authority and Des Moines Water Works have signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office to pursue Superior Energy Performance (SEP) certification. SEP is a certification and recognition for facilities demonstrating energy management excellence and sustained energy savings. The City of Des Moines and Des Moines Water Works are the first two water/wastewater operators to pursue SEP certification in the water/wastewater industry sector.

Mr. William Stowe, Des Moines Water Works CEO
 and General Manager signing the Department of Energy
Superior Energy Performance agreement
David L. Miller, Director of the Des Moines Metropolitan
Waste Water Reclamation Authority signing the
Department of Energy Superior Energy Performance agreement

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Getting the Best Performance From High Efficiency Motors

At Motors@Work, we have talked to customers who upgrade several motors to more efficient models only to find that the new premium efficient motors were actually consuming more than the standard motors. How can that be? There are two potential issues at play. First, many electricians don’t measure power directly (as kW), but infer it from amperage readings (as compared to full load amps). Remember, kW = V x Amps x PF x a constant. Power factor might be different between the old motor and the new motor so amp readings are not a true measure of potential kW increases or reductions. Secondly, and more likely, Premium Efficiency motors do operate with a higher full-load speed. If you turn a centrifugal fan or pump at a greater speed (in RPM), your flow and head increase and so does your power draw---in accordance with the affinity laws that state that input power increases with the third power of the speed ratio i.e. ((speed final)/(speed initial)) is raised to the third power. So, if the original motor had a speed of 1760 RPM and the replacement motor drove the same rotating equipment at 1775 RPM, flow provided would increase by (1775/1760) = 1.0142 or 1.4% while input power would increase by the ratio cubed or 4.3%. Driving the equipment faster does indeed increase the load imposed on the motor by the rotating equipment and the motor has to draw additional power to meet that increased load. That increase in power is likely to be more than enough to negate the energy savings due to the efficiency improvement.

So what to do? If the equipment has a belt drive, then the pulley sizes can be adjusted to once again drive the rotating equipment at its original operating speed. Then the operator will receive the full benefits of the increased efficiency of the Premium Efficiency motor. They could also look at adjusting the speed or actually downsizing the motor.

If you are using Motors@Work, feed motor readings into the system (manually or automatically) to immediately identify the problem. Motors@Work will identify the increased speed (load) and pointing the engineer to either modify the design (as an example resizing the pulley), adjust the speed, or downsize the motor.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

What would Harrington Emerson think?

Today many industrial companies utilize Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) as a key performance indicator (KPI) in conjunction with lean manufacturing efforts to provide an indicator of success. The question is, is it relevant today?
OEE is a hierarchy of metrics developed in the 1960s to evaluate how effectively a manufacturing operation’s assets are utilized. It is based on the Harrington Emerson (was a pioneer in industrial engineering and management promoting the ideas of scientific management and efficiency) way of thinking regarding labor efficiency. The results are stated in a generic form which allows comparison between manufacturing units in differing industries. It is not however an absolute measure and is best used to identify scope for process performance improvement. The hierarchy consists of two top-level measures (OEE and TEEP; the difference being OEE measures effectiveness based on scheduled hours whereas TEEP measures effectiveness against calendar hours) and four underlying measures that provide understanding as to why and where the OEE and TEEP gaps exist. These measures are:
  • Loading: a determinant of the TEEP Metric that represents the percentage of total calendar time that is actually scheduled for operation.
  • Availability: a determinant of the OEE Metric that represents the percentage of scheduled time that the operation is available to operate.
  • Performance: a determinant of the OEE Metric that represents the speed at which the Work Center runs as a percentage of its designed speed. And
  • Quality: a determinant of the OEE Metric that represents the Good Units produced (Yield) as a percentage of the Total Units started. OEE does not factor in operational costs, and certainly not those related to energy efficiency. But should it?
In the early 1960s, when OEE was established, electricity was less than 1 cent per kWh, therefore not a significant cost component. Also worth noting was that this time frame was prior to Dr. Charles Keeling (recognized for his early work on measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide) publishing his findings illustrating the continuing build-up of CO2 over time and the scientific community correlating the CO2 buildup and climate change. So quite frankly there was simply not a socio-economic reason to consider energy as a manufacturing perfromance factor. But today that Is not the case. Energy prices are 10X if not greater than they were in 1960, comprising over 50% of a companies O&M costs and in some cases exceeding 90%. And the scientific community has quit debating if climate change is real. The discussion is now on how to curb CO2 buildup. And when viewed through an energy lens, the leading contributor to CO2, over 60% of every kWh generated is wasted.
In 1909 Harrington Emerson stated: "The twentieth century dawns with as yet unaccomplished task of conservation, of eliminating wastes-wanton and wicked wastes of all kinds, wastes that make our civic governments a by-word, our destruction of natural resources a world scandal, our complacent industrial efficiency a peculiarly national disgrace, of all nations, we Americans ought to know better."
So what would Mr. Emerson think of the industrial efficiency today, 100 years later?
Should OEE be the default manufacturing indicator of performance?

About the Author

Rod Ellsworth has over 30 years of related energy and enterprise asset management experience. Prior to founding Asset Sustainability @ Work Rod lead the convergence of the energy and asset management markets, “Global Asset Sustainability”, through the first commercially available energy and asset management offering. Rod founded Asset Sustainability @ Work to develop certified Best Practice software tools to enable Customer business transformation with organizations having a focus on promoting energy conservation and sustainability by delivering the financial and physical controls for an enterprise to be in full control of their sustainability, energy consumption, and the asset and operating infrastructure that underpins them. Asset Sustainability @ Work’s initial offering is Motors @ Wok, a SaaS solution based on certified best practices for managing commercial and industrial motor-driven equipment for peak energy efficiency.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Electric Motor Energy Efficiency - By the Numbers

Introduction

Today over 24 trillion kWhs of electricity is consumed worldwide. This is projected to grow to 39 trillion kWhs by 2040. There are over 300 million motors in use in industry, infrastructure and large facilities which consume over 6.75 trillion kWhs or a little over 1 out of every 4 kWh generated in the world is consumed by electric motors in large commercial facilities and industrial operations. Typically, motors consume in excess of 60% of an industrial sites’ electrical energy (approx. 30% in commercial facilities). For many industrial facilities it can be even greater. In primary manufacturing, process loads predominate and motors may constitute more than 90% of a site’s electrical consumption. The motor driven consumption will continue to increase proportionate to the electricity consumption projections and is represented in the 30 million electric motors sold annually for replacement and new applications, which as a market, is projected to grow at 19.67% over the next 5 years. Conservatively by 2040 we will be looking at over 600 million electric motors in use in the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) sectors consuming over 13.5 trillion kWhs. At $.1 per KWh this is equivalent to $1.35 trillion per year. Of this motor-driven equipment consumption D.O.E estimates that 15% to 80% of the energy consumed is wasted (Fig 1).
Motor-driven assets must be a major focus of attention in any program to reduce energy and CO2 emissions and within the industrial sector particularly, a cornerstone of any efficiency program.

Welcome to Motors@Work

Welcome to the blog home for Motors@Work.  If you have an interest in motors, maintenance, sustainability, or energy efficiency, you will find insightful information from industry experts here.  Please feel free to contact us at admin@motorsatwork.com with any questions or comments about what you see.  We love to talk about our favorite subjects.  Thanks for visiting and we hope to see you again soon!