2009-11-30 - Variable speed drives often give payback within months on energy savings alone. In addition, by optimising the speed for the requirements of the process, users often find they get better product quality and reduced maintenance costs.
When you install a variable speed drive from ABB, the capital costs can be quickly repaid.
To take one example from real life, a UK manufacturer who installed an ABB drive on one of its fans found that a speed reduction of 20% resulted in a 56% reduction in power from 118 kW to 51 kW, saving over 440,000 kWh a year. The cost of the drive was £5,600 and the energy savings £17,000 per year or £1,400 per month, giving a straight payback of four months. After the 4 months, the drive has continued to save money for the company every month and will continue to do so for the rest of its life. Not many other investments offer this type of payback – imagine for instance how much more you would need to sell to improve annual profits by £17,000.
The rewards for investing in energy efficient motors are less spectacular but are still worth pursuing as the direct-on-line installations are so numerous. The electricity the motor consumes during its lifetime makes up the overwhelming part of its lifetime cost.
The purchase cost is very small in comparison and is overtaken by electricity cost already after 30 days of continuous operation. A 90 kW energy efficient motor can cost £1,500 more to buy than a standard efficiency motor, but can save over £10,000 over the course of a 10-year service life compared to a standard efficiency motor. In addition, because the high efficiency motor has lower energy losses it will have a lower running temperature giving improved reliability. This makes high efficiency motors a better choice in critical applications, for instance in the paper industry where standstill costs are high.
0% interest Energy-Efficiency Loan
Any company spending less than £500,000 on energy that dosent fall into the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, may be eligible for an interest free, unsecured Carbon Trust Energy-Efficiency Loan.
These are designed to help qualifying companies purchase energy saving equipment to upgrade or replace existing facilities. Loans are attractive, with up to £500,000 at 0% fixed interest available, unsecured for up to four years with no arrangement fees and a straight forward application process
If you take out a loan to finance the purchase of a variable speed drive on an application with long running hours and large potential energy savings, you will almost certainly find yourself in profit after comparing the monthly energy savings with the repayments (see graph above).
Even projects with less spectacular energy saving figures, for instance drive applications with shorter running hours, replacement of an old drive with a newer model, or investments in energy efficient motors, are well worth looking into. The Carbon Trust will consider any energy saving project with a payback period shorter than five years. You will still get the benefit of running the latest equipment at a very low cost, if not free. In fact, you may well end up getting paid for it!
You can work out your potential savings using ABB’s free energy saving calculator - click here
Energy efficiency loan - Eligibility criteria
- Private sector organisations
- Small and medium-sized (SME) companies as well as large companies that don't qualify for the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme
- Annual turnover of no more than £43m, or an annual
balance sheet total not exceeding £37m
- Not more than 25% of the capital or voting rights is
owned by an enterprise that is itself a small or
medium-sized enterprise.
- Based in England, Wales, Scotland or any enterprise in Northern Ireland
- Trading for at least 12 months
- Acceptable credit rating
Companies in agriculture and fisheries, the transport sector and export related activities are not currently eligible
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