There are various initiatives that are supported by the emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things, which involves monitoring and working on the efficiency of variable frequency drive systems (VFD) and improving the performance of individual power components.
Nowadays, VFD products have come up with embedded computational capability that consists of information that is already IIoT ready. One needs to keep in mind that they need to work on improving the efficiency of components and reduce the overall power usage of the integrated drive system. With the help of this trend, one can use the computed information from IIoT-ready products to improve the production system efficiency.
Another thing that is going on in the realm of industrial automation is to closely match motors with VFDs and other electrical equipment to increase the system efficiency as an integrated drive system. To be more precise, things that come under an integrated drive system includes drive, motor, and controls as one entity, starting from the electric utility and ending on the production floor.
It may include switchgear, power transformer, circuit breaker, a VFD, and AC motor, mechanical coupling, and even a motor pump or other equipment working towards the process.
Affinity for System Efficiency
When one is trying to improve the system efficiency with the help of industrial automation and VFDs, most of the engineers who are working towards it can relate to the affinity law of physics for centrifugal loads such as a fan or pump for energy savings.
So when the pump or fan increases to 100% motor speed, then less power is required to keep it operating at that speed due to the variable load.
Hence, reducing the motor speed significantly will eventually reduce the voltage and current used. For instance, a 20% reduction in motor speed will help save as much as 49% in electricity costs.
There are a few other ways to improve the efficiency of a system, and that can be done with the help of VFDs. They use variable voltage and frequency to control the speed of an AC motor. Typical AC motor types consist of asynchronous or induction motors, synchronous motors, and permanent magnet motors.
We Are All Moving Swiftly Towards A Better Power Factors
In order to improve the electrical-system efficiency by empowering the power factor is a trend. So to provide you with a better understanding, power factor correction is the measure of real current that produces real power to the motor and can be expressed as a percentage of real power to apparent power.
A thing to keep in mind is that a VFD or variable speed drives that has a power factor of 95 percent or even higher makes better use of line current, therefore helping generate more efficient, real power to the AC motor. The AC motor needs voltage in a sinusoidal waveform to decrease the torque pulsation.
Another thing to keep in mind is that VFD can generate undesirable harmonic distortion current. What it does is create additional heating in motors and could lead to disrupting electronic equipment in the building. In order to reduce harmonics, it can be done with the use of an active power filter for the building’s electrical system. VFDs monitor input and output voltage, and the current can increase the efficiency of the drive.
With the help of a motor protection system, one can keep a check on real-time monitoring of both input and output voltage and current, harmonics, power factor, and motor temperatures. They also provide analog and digital signals to production network SCADA systems, which comes with the real-time monitoring of the drive functions. Now with the help of real-time monitoring and efficiency and power factor improvements, integrated drive systems can lead to a reduction of overall operating costs.