Renewable Energy Sector helps power drives market growth The energy saving benefits of motor drives are well known throughout the industrial landscape. Parts of industry that have traditionally seen high motor drive utilization include commercial HVAC, conveyors, food & beverage, metal processing, textiles and utilities. According tot the latest data produced by IMS Research, these industries accounted for more than 38% of the total $7.1 billion motor drives market in 2006. However, according to data collected from all major motor drive suppliers, other, less documented segments of industry contribute to a significant portion of the overall drives market. The "others" sector, which covers a diverse range of application areas including aggregates, electronic assembly and scientific & medical, accounted for nearly 29% of market revenues in 2006. One of the major components of this segment is the renewable energy sector, which is increasingly using motor drives in a variety of ways. These include applications in the traditional renewable energy industry of wind power, as well as applications found in newly developed technologies that attempt to harness the energy in ocean waves, and subglacial ice flows. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, total installed capacity for wind power increased by 25% worldwide in 2006, requiring some $23 billion worth of new generating equipment and bringing global wind power capacity to more than 74GW. Motor drives are particularly useful in this field because they allow the turbine blades to spin at different speeds depending on the velocity of wind at any given time. This booming market presents motor drive manufacturers with an area of substantial growth, as drives are being installed in increasing numbers of new wind turbines every year. In addition to being used in new equipment, drives are also being placed into existing wind turbines, lowering total operating costs and significantly increasing the lifetimes of the turbines. Wave energy represents another area of considerable potential for the utilization of motor drives. At the core of this technology is the concept that, as the sea rises and falls, it pushes and sucks a column of air through a pair of contra-rotating turbines to generate electricity. This is highly reliant upon a device called the Wells turbine, which has the unusual property of continuing to turn in the same direction, regardless of the direction of the air passing through it. The future holds the potential for the design to be incorporated into breakwaters, coastal defences, land reclamation sites, port walls and similar structures. Further, motor drives are also being utilized in large boring machines that are carving 40km of tunnels for a hydro-electric project in Iceland. Water from a reservoir will be carried through these tunnels and drive six hydroelectric turbo generators which will generate up to 4.45TWh of energy                                                                     per year. The drives are used to slow down the cutting heads of the boring machines in bad                                                                                ground conditions, a process crucial to avoiding cavities that could damage the heads.                                                                      As can be seen from these examples, the renewable energy sector presents great opportunity for                                                                      motor drive suppliers, and with energy prices at record levels, will be a great driving force for the                                                                      motor drives market in the future. Speed Link InfoService Request more information by e-mail Reader Service No. Reader Number Email Address 00989    Tell a friend about this article:
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