Motors & Drives Information

How effective is this government endeavor, now in its fifth year?

ANYONE INVOLVED AT ALL in industrial energy management has probably heard by now of a new government endeavor called the "Motor Challenge." Just what is this program? Who's being challenged, and to do what? Who's paying for it?

A short answer is that the challenge is to improve the efficiency of motordriven processes throughout all U.S. industry. Some government seed money is being spent. But industry itself is expected to do the job.

Here's how it came about. The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), primarily through its Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) is charged with promoting efficient industrial use of the nation's energy supplies. Conservation is being encouraged. New, more efficient technologies are being sought. This is an outgrowth of the "National Energy Strategy," issued by the Office of the President in February 1991, subtitled "How we expect to produce and use energy in the future."

Since then, President Clinton has issued his Climate Change Action Plan, aimed at mitigating the threatening "greenhouse effect" by reducing emissions of fuel-burning combustion products. Both energy conservation and greenhouse gas reduction are dealt with by provisions of the 1992 Energy Policy Act (EPACT).

To promote compliance with, and even going beyond, that legislation, the DoE (through the OIT and the Department's Office of Energy Demand Policy) launched its "EMS" or "Efficient Motor Systems" program early in 1993.

At a kickoff conference in Baltimore in February of that year, 350 representatives of government, electric motor and drive manufacturing and service firms, consultants, electric utilities, and other concerned parties met to discuss the application, economics, and marketplace encouragement of more efficient industrial electric motor drives. An outgrowth of that effort was the Motor Challenge initiative, officially begun in October 1993.

The "challenge" is to develop, manufacture, and put into use the most efficient electric motor-driven industrial systems that can be economically justified. Legislation to force such usage is, of course, one means to that end, if the public is willing to accept it. Such willingness has expressed itself to some extent in EPACT. But that law is only a basis or starting point for large-scale conservation of energy in motor drives. Here's why:

The largest motors (above 250 hp) that individually use the most energy, as well as the smallest motors (below one hp) that far outnumber all others, are exempt from the law.

Even before EPACT, most manufacturers offered products with efficiencies well above the legal minimum. Still more have become available since.

In making repair-or-replace decisions, many users seem skeptical about the reliability of the newer, more efficient designs, and of their performance aside from efficiency.

Uncertainties remain concerning accuracy of quoted efficiency values and how product conformance with EPACT will be verified.

Adjustable speed drives (ASDs) often save far more than a more efficient motor. But EPACT does not prescribe or govern ASD application.

In 1993, therefore, the DoE began working out a program to encourage equipment specifiers and operators to look for energy savings outside the EPACT limits. Unlike many public utilities at that time, the DoE could not offer direct financial incentives to encourage such planning. Therefore, the Motor Challenge evolved into these primary activities:

Education. Through widely distributed publications (such as the periodic newsletter Turning Point and trade magazine articles), regional and national user/manufacturer workshops, conferences, and telecasts, the EMS message has been brought to large numbers of engineers, designers, plant operators, facility managers, and others involved in choosing and using not only motors and drives but fans, pumps, and other process machinery.

In 1995, the DoE published its 261page Motor Challenge Sourcebook. The most extensive available reference to "current activities and resources in the industrial motor systems markets," this volume contains listings of drive system manufacturers and trade associations; sources of reference books, software, educational resources, and other publications-what they are, what they contain, and how to get them; electric utility incentive programs nationwide; and what each of the states is doing to promote energy conservation, with the contact person to reach.

Other publications include the 55page Energy Efficient Motor Selection Handbook and an ASD application guidebook.

Data availability. Through direct financial incentives and promotion to potential users, as well as indirect support, the DoE has helped place the 12,000-item "MotorMaster" database in the hands of decision-makers to aid them in evaluating efficient motor availability and economics from one through 600 horsepower.

Test facilities. The first step was designation of 22 Energy Analysis and Diagnostic Centers on university campuses from Oregon to Florida. (This has not been a strong point of the program. Few academic professionals are familiar with the apparatus, the standards, or the application requirements of industrial electric motors.)

# posted by Medical Information : 2:44 AM