01 / 29 / 2010

THE TRUTH
ABOUT ENERGY-
EFFICIENT MOTORS

Everyone wants to save energy. It costs less to use less energy. It’s the

“green” and “cool” thing to do. And if you are in the market for a motor, the
government may soon pay you to replace your inefficient motors with new,

energy-efficient NEMA Premium® versions.

So, then, you might think that buying a premium-efficient motor is the answer

to your energy usage problems. But you would be overlooking an important

fact: an energy-efficient motor is only one piece of the energy savings

puzzle. While premium-efficient motors do help to reduce energy usage, they

are by no means the cure-all to every energy consumption problem.

For the highest energy savings, it’s important to look at the entire drivetrain

when searching for ways to improve efficiency. Consider carefully the

misconceptions that surround energy-efficient motors, and be sure you

www.seweurodrive.com are investing your money wisely to save the most energy possible.
Common Energy-Efficient Motor Misconceptions

1. Efficiency automatically equals savings.

Efficiency is a property, much like a color, or a material type; a value that doesn’t
change much. The Department of Energy certifies that a motor meets the
“Premium” standard established by NEMA, based on that motor’s ability to
meet certain efficiency targets. So purchasing a NEMA Premium motor from one
manufacturer will very likely give you a motor with basically the same efficiency
as a NEMA Premium motor purchased from another manufacturer.

But if you purchase and install just a premium-efficient motor, you are not
automatically saving all the money you could be saving. There are multiple
reasons why this might be possible, and we will address some of these in
the following paragraphs:

• Your new motor may only be a few percentage points more efficient than
your previous motor; in cycling or intermittent duty applications, the savings
you recognize are so small, they are outweighed by the higher cost of the
new efficient motor.

• Other parts of your drivetrain may be much less efficient, causing higher-
than-necessary energy consumption from your efficient motor.

• Your new motor may not be well-suited to saving energy in your type of
application, e.g. high-cycling applications.

While premium-efficient motors are important, it’s critical to evaluate your entire
drivetrain for energy efficiency and remember that energy efficient motors are
just a single part of the efficiency equation.

2. Replacing my motor will give me the best bang for my energy buck.

A motor is only one component in the drivetrain (and, truth be told, motors for
some time have been comparatively efficient). Each component in a system will
inherently have some inefficiency, and these energy losses multiply together to
provide an overall system efficiency. Just one component with poor energy usage
will quickly drag down the rest of the system. Consider the following theoretical
example where every component has an almost-impossible efficiency of 99%:
SYSTEM EFFICIENCY: Ideal Scenario...

ηLine ηVFD ηMotor ηGear ηTrans ηLoad ηSystem

99% 99% 99% 99% 99% 99% 94.2%

η = Efficiency

You’ll see that even in this example with 6 components of ideal efficiency, you
are still losing almost 6% of the energy that you started with.

Now, let’s consider two more realistic examples:

10-year-old motor

ηLine ηVFD ηMotor ηGear ηTrans ηLoad ηSystem

98% 96% 85% 75% 90% 98% 53.5%

Brand new, premium-efficient motor

ηLine ηVFD ηMotor ηGear ηTrans ηLoad ηSystem

98% 96% 92% 75% 90% 98% 57.3%

You can see in both examples that you are wasting over 45% of the energy
going into the system. You can also see that replacing your motor with a
premium-efficient model will save you less than 4 percentage points of efficiency.
The other, less efficient components in your drivetrain are still wasting energy,
meaning that the investment you’ve made in a premium-efficient motor will take
longer to recoup than you had planned.
 3. Replacing my motor will automatically make my line more efficient.

Well, yes – but by less than you might expect. Replacing some of the other
components as well as your motor can provide some very substantial efficiency
gains, however.

Let’s consider, for instance, that we replace the gearbox as well as the motor.
Worm gear units, which are installed in most manufacturing environments, are
inherently inefficient, as the gears are essentially sliding against one another.
There are instances in which worm drives are necessary for the application
(e.g. withstanding heavy shock loads, or providing back-driving resistance). But in
many applications a helical-bevel gearbox, which operates in a rolling contact
manner, will be much more efficient.

Let’s take our previous “real world” example and replace both the motor
AND the gearbox.

ηLine ηVFD ηMotor ηGear ηTrans ηLoad ηSystem

98% 96% 92% 95% 90% 98% 72.5%

You’ll see now we are quickly recognizing substantial, double-digit efficiency

gains – nearly 20 percentage points – and your line begins to become much
more efficient. If you change your transmission elements from a v-belt to a
positive engagement method, or even to a direct-drive method, your efficiency
gains can be even higher.

4. A premium-efficient motor is an appropriate energy-saving choice

for all motor applications.

Again, it depends. Most premium-efficient motors used in continuously-running

applications will begin to show at least modest energy savings (depending, as we
have shown, on the other elements in the drivetrain).

But motors used in high-cycling applications may never recognize the efficiency
gains that a premium-efficient motor is capable of, partly due to the start-and-stop
nature of the application fighting against the higher rotor inertia of many premium
efficient motors. Hence, the extra investment in a high-efficiency motor may not
ever be completely recouped.
Heat and high-cycling motors Some NEMA Premium motors, such as the new DRP motor from
SEW-EURODRIVE, are engineered to make them more efficient in high-cycling
Starting a motor produces a great deal
applications. These motors are designed for low rotor inertia, low losses, and
of heat in the windings. This heat is
less heat accumulation in the windings, increasing efficiency and allowing for a
proportional to the current required
very high number of starts and stops per hour.
to start the motor. In many premium-
efficient motors, the starting current is
Be sure that you consider all the options available to you, and be careful
much higher than in standard efficiency
to choose the premium efficient motor that is best suited to your need.
models. Unless this heat is removed
in some way, it will build up and cause
5. Adding a variable frequency drive (VFD) will automatically make
motor failure.
my line more efficient.
Once a motor is started and running, the
Actually, a VFD will initially decrease your efficiency. As no component can be
fan moves air across the motor windings
to cool them sufficiently. But, if the motor 100% efficient, the losses introduced by a VFD due to heat, electricity conversion

is stopped before this happens, the heat and harmonics are now inserted into the efficiency equation, resulting in a lower
dissipation process takes much longer. total efficiency.
In high-cycling applications, the frequent
starts produce a great deal of heat, and The key to energy savings is smart control. By optimizing acceleration/

the poor air circulation rapidly leads to heat deceleration ramps, slowing down the motor, and turning it off when not in use,
build-up. A motor’s ability to manage this a VFD can optimize a motor’s energy consumption. If you drive a motor with a
heat is what determines the allowable VFD the same way you drive your car to save gas, your energy consumption
number of starts, or cycles, per hour.
will drop similarly.

A VFD can also save energy by recycling or sharing regenerative energy. When
a motor is trying to stop a high inertia load, it acts as a generator. All of the kinetic
energy stored in the machine has to be removed, typically burned as heat with a
braking resistor. But many modern regenerative VFD systems can put the energy
back onto the grid. Some even allow the energy to be directly given to another
VFD just as it needs to accelerate.

The bottom line? Properly used, VFDs can have some big efficiency benefits
when added as part of a complete drivetrain efficiency solution.
The Truth About Energy-Efficient Motors

1. They are only part of the efficiency puzzle.

As we have shown, motors are at best one-sixth of the total energy loss
potential for an electromechanical drivetrain. And, what’s more, they typically
aren’t even the most inefficient part, either. Mechanical devices, such as external
transmission elements, have far more inefficiencies than do electrical devices, so
look there first to find your largest energy savings.

2. By revamping your entire drivetrain, you may actually be able to

use a smaller motor and save even more.

Right now, you are probably using a motor of a particular horsepower to produce
a needed output from your drivetrain. You may be pleasantly surprised to find
that, by upgrading your motor, drive, gearbox, and external transmission
components, you will have gained enough efficiency that your motor power is
now higher than you actually need. You can now save additional energy – and
motor replacement costs – by purchasing a lower horsepower motor as a result.
For example:

before: 50 output HP needed ÷ 53.5% efficiency = 93.5 HP motor needed

after: 50 output HP needed ÷ 72.5% efficiency = 69 HP motor needed

3. They are most efficient when integrated with other drivetrain

components from the same manufacturer.

Systems where the drive controller, motor and gearbox are all engineered by
the same company are by nature designed to work well together, eliminating
unnecessary inefficiencies and allowing additional energy savings. For example,
integrating an SEW-EURODRIVE DRP motor, helical-bevel reducer, and VFD will
provide dramatically higher energy savings than simply replacing the motor.
SEW-EURODRIVE DRP 4. They must be well-suited to your application.
NEMA Premium motor
Just plunking a premium-efficient motor on the line may not automatically solve all

• Can handle 1000-2000 cycles per hour your energy problems, even if all the other components are as efficient as possible.

• Only premium-efficient motor with Check to see that the specifications of the motor fit your application, especially if
built-in encoder you have high-cycling applications, greater than 10 to 30 cycles per hour. If that’s the
• Only premium-efficient motor with case, use a premium- or high-efficiency motor designed for such an application with
integral brake, in 3 available sizes
an integral brake, appropriately sized to the motor.
• DRP high performance series,
available in 1 – 50HP

• Compact sizing 5. Mechanical efficiencies matter, too.

• Available with NEMA C-flange
configuration Worm gear reducers, which are attached to a large number of motors, can have an

• Rated for severe duty environments efficiency range of 50 to 88 percent, depending on the number of starts (teeth) on

• Meets all global efficiency standards the worm gear.

• Part of the SEW modular gearing
and drive system number of starts typical efficiency range
1 50-69%
2 70-79%
5 80-88%

As you can see, even the most efficient worm gears have only 88% efficiency, largely
due to the sliding nature of the gear contact.

However, helical bevel gear reducers lose only approximately 1.5% of efficiency for
each stage of their gearing; as such, a 3-stage helical bevel gearbox would have a
95.5% efficiency rating.

In addition, due to the drastically reduced friction inherent in the rolling contact of a
helical bevel gearbox, the usable lifetime of such a system is many times longer than
a worm drive system. Although helical bevel gearboxes are higher in initial cost, over
the lifetime of the system, in both energy savings and replacement cost savings,
they will save you money.

6. Gearmotors eliminate even more efficiency losses.

Gearmotors inherently yield tremendous increases in efficiency. Since a gearmotor

has rigid transmission elements, with the motor and reducer rigidly, permanently
and precisely coupled and aligned, the motor-to-gear connection has nearly
100% efficiency. By eliminating the friction and slippage associated with V-belts,
pulleys and even chains, you can quickly gain a 12-15% increase in efficiency
over the average flexible transmission system. (Plus, you’ll save even more on the
replacement and maintenance of belts.)
Standard vs. Optimized1 Conclusion
Standard: As you can see, energy-efficient motors play an important role in reducing energy
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usage and increasing cost savings. But they are by no means the cure-all to every
������ energy consumption problem. In addition to weighing the characteristics of the
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elements in the drivetrain equation.
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For maximum energy savings:
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����� ����� • Replace the motor with a NEMA Premium motor, such as the SEW DRP motor.
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• Choose a motor appropriate to your particular application.
Overall
���� drive train efficiency = 56.1%
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Power utility = 16.2kW • Replace worm gear units with helical-bevel gearboxes.
Energy used = 64.8MWh per year
����������������������������� • Use the most efficient drivetrain, such as a gearmotor configuration.
Cost of energy = $6,480 per year ������
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• Eliminate flexible transmission elements.
Power
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��������
���� • Utilize a variable frequency drive (VFD) to intelligently manage your motor’s
energy usage and recover regenerative energy.
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Optimized:
• Consider if your efficiency gains will allow you to use a smaller motor for your
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desired application.
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For more information about SEW-EURODRIVE’s new DR motor series of energy-
����������� efficient motors, click here or contact Sales for your local SEW representative.

�������� For more information about SEW-EURODRIVE and its complete line of energy-
saving motors, drive controllers, and gearboxes, visit www.seweurodrive.com.
Overall drive train efficiency = 88.3%
Power required from utility = 10.3kW
Energy used = 41.2MWh per year
Cost of energy = $4,120 per year
Power loss to inefficiency = 1.2kW

Comparison Summary:
• 57% efficiency increase
• 23.6MWh energy savings/yr.
• $2,360 savings/yr.

Given conditions: 20 HP motor operated 16 hrs/day,

1

250 days/year • Application requires that 9.1kW be

delivered to conveyor head drum • Cost of energy
= $0.10/kWh • Motor in standard example is high
efficiency per EPAct 1997. • Motor in optimized
example is premium efficiency per EISA 2007.

1295 Old Spartanburg Highway • Lyman, South Carolina 29365 • 864.439.8792 www.seweurodrive.com