One of the biggest challenges facing South Africa today is energy optimisation. Capacity constraints, coupled with escalating energy costs, have forced companies in all industries to take a closer look at internal energy efficiency.
“Variable speed drives, electric motors and drive belts can all make a significant contribution to improvements in efficiency and environmental issues,” says Bearing Man Group electronics division manager, Dave Dyce. “Motors and drives account for 66% of power consumed by industry. A motor running for 11 hours a day typically costs 10 times more in electricity than its capital cost and by fitting the correct inverter, motor and drive combination, a company can save up to 50% on energy costs year on year.”
BMG works closely with industry to achieve more efficient and sustainable solutions. Through a critical focus on entire production processes, the extensive range of solutions and services, optimises productivity and enhances process plant operating reliability.
The company’s commitment to being a comprehensive process solutions provider to all sectors of industry means companies can now access all critical production efficient products and services from one reliable supplier. This integrated approach guarantees lower production costs and higher efficiencies.
BMG’s team of 140 specialised field service technicians offers onsite maintenance services to ensure machine reliability, efficient maintenance procedures and optimum control in breakdown situations. To add sustainability, BMG offers extensive training, which covers electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electronic and materials handling disciplines, as well as predictive maintenance and component failure analysis.
Variable speed drives ensure energy savings and reduced operating costs
BMG’s range of Danfoss electronic variable speed drive systems, offers the local market a wide range of energy efficient products for fully automated operation and substantial energy savings in diverse applications.
VLT drives ensure easy and efficient control of any application powered by an AC motor including fans, pumps, compressors and centrifuges. What sets the drives apart is their ability to reduce energy consumption and only supply what is needed to drive the system effectively. This is achieved by using an application specific inverter with enhanced features that capitalise on potential savings within the system.
VLT drives come standard with access to the full parameter list and an easy to use interface. Every VLT drive is built on a modular platform, which encompasses specific power sizes, features, enclosure classes and field-bus protocols. Users can determine which options are essential to meet specific energy saving requirements.
Master/Slave torque control
Smooth starting of conveyors can be a problem where large conveyor systems carry heavy materials in large quantities over large distances.
This type of conveyor system usually has more than one motor driving common head pulleys. Where two head pulleys are incorporated, the pulleys are driven by two motors per common shaft. The VLT drives are setup using a speed master and three torque slave drive configuration, meaning an equal spread of power and torque on each common coupling. This configuration means each motor/gearbox does an equal amount of work, thereby reducing stresses on one particular unit. The VLT configuration usually allows a fully loaded conveyor to start without any problem. As an added benefit, if one motor fails the design still allows the system to start and run the conveyor when lightly loaded.
Energy efficient cooling concept
By nature, variable speed drives produce heat while they are running and this heat can potentially cause problems with other equipment that is in close proximity, or to the drive itself. This heat needs to be controlled and dissipated correctly to minimise any adverse effects.
In a recent mining project, 3 x 710 kW VLT drives were installed in a substation using the back channel cooling concept resulted in a saving of 80 kW of electrical power. This exceeds the power savings that can be achieved by merely swapping standard efficiency motors for their high efficiency counterparts.
The main focus of this mine was on energy efficiency optimisation. Power consumption in the substation has been significantly reduced by redirecting the heat losses created by VLT drives. Back channel cooling lowers heat loads in the substation, resulting in lower power consumption of the air conditioning system.
The Danfoss back channel cooling system operates using air from outside the substation blown up through the VLT heat sink and then exhausted directly back out again without affecting the temperature or pressure inside the building.
Without back channel cooling, the heat load from the drives accumulates in the substation requiring a more powerful air conditioning system and higher power costs.
The pumping system at this mine achieves additional savings by utilising the Danfoss automatic energy optimisation (AEO). This feature ensures that motor magnetisation is always at the optimum real time requirement and that no energy is unnecessarily expended.
BMG’s comprehensive motors and drives range also includes Nord geared motors and gear drive solutions, high efficiency Synergy electric motors, Varvel worm and helical gear motors, Fenner shaft mounted drives, Sumitomo cycloidal gear motors for heavy shock loads, Dinamic Oil planetary gear units and Zollern Dorstener customised drives.
For more information contact Veronique van Niekerk, Bearing Man Group, +27 (0)31 576 6221, [email protected], www.bmgworld.net
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