SUSTAINABILITY IN MANUFACTURING
SUPPLEMENT
IMPROVING THE ECO-BALANCE OF COMPONENTS
Committed to further reducing the environmental impact of its components, Mersen has carried out environmental analysis. So what were the results?
Consisting in an arrangement of conductive and insulating layers, bus bars distribute the current between different points. As the current density is different at the individual points of the circuit, hot spots occur – the losses due to the Joule effect can be considerable here. For the eco-design
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gainst the backdrop of climate change, the industry must reduce its ecological impact and take environmental criteria into
account as early as the product design phase. Life cycle analyses are an important tool for improving the environmental compatibility of electronic products. While the eco-design and sustainability of power electronic components are the focus of several new research projects, the environmental impact of power electronics as a whole is being analysed, but not that of individual passive components. As a manufacturer of these products, Mersen
believes it has a responsibility to further reduce their ecological footprint, so has analysed the environmental impact of its components.
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT The preferred method for assessing the environmental impact of passive components is the life cycle assessment. This enables a better understanding of the critical points and shows the corrective measures that need to be taken to reduce the overall environmental impact. The life cycle assessment of products takes into account their weight, energy consumption, the composition of the materials and the waste generated during production. Co-operation with the users of the products is also important: They can provide important information on distribution channels and how the components are used in practice. Mersen used the EIME software to create the life cycle assessments. With its help, environmental impacts can be analysed either on the basis of life cycle phases or by individual components.
LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS OF A LAMINATED BUS BAR One of the product groups analysed in the ecodesign study was laminated bus bar.
study, a representative bus bar was analysed:
a piece dedicated to wind turbine, with dimensions of approximately 500mm x 1000mm and a total weight of 42.9kg. 94% of the bus bar consists of copper conductors with a thickness of 1.5mm. The result of the bus bar analysis:
5,235kg of CO2 equivalent are emitted over the entire service life. By converting electrical energy into thermal energy, a maximum temperature rise of 14˚C is achieved, as the experts found out using a thermoelectric simulation with the COMSOL Multiphysics software. This corresponds to 14.2 MWh of losses during the product’s service life. What was also determined: the use phase of products has by far the greatest environmental impact in terms of most of the indicators analysed, such as global warming. The end-of-life phase, on the other hand, has the greatest impact on the indicator for freshwater eutrophication (PEF-Epf) and metal depletion (PEF-ADPe). This is due to the copper recycling phase. The study also identified a number of
potential improvements, including optimising energy efficiency. Mersen has already investigated changes to the design of the bus bar: by increasing the conductor thickness, the power loss (Joule effect) has been reduced and a significant reduction in climate impact has been achieved.
22% LESS CO2 EMISSIONS
Passive components are subject to high stress during the utilisation phase, as they have a high power loss and a long service life. However, this applies less to the belay devices, which dissipate less energy. Reducing the weight of these products therefore becomes a real challenge, which has a significant impact
on the overall CO2 footprint. Mersen investigated the carbon footprint of its belay devices and then optimised their design.
While the weight of the original product was 63g, the eco-designed version weighed only 46g thanks to optimised plastic and metal components. This corresponds to a weight
reduction of 26% and a reduction in CO2 equivalents of 22% compared to the material extraction phase. With four million of these products manufactured by Mersen every year, this means a total reduction in environmental impact of 356 tonnes of CO2 equivalents.
HIGHER OUTPUT DESPITE WEIGHT REDUCTION
When optimising the design of a fuse, however, the reduction in weight did not result in any
savings in CO2 equivalents. The opposite was the case: although the weight was reduced from 920g to 810g, the power emitted by the fuse increased from 3300 MJ to 3600 MJ over its 20-year service life. In the overall balance of the fuse, the increase in performance led to
an increase in CO2 equivalents of 8%. The example of the fuses shows that
material savings do not lead to a reduction in
CO2 emissions for every passive component. However, the weight reduction did have one advantage: the environmental impact of raw material extraction was reduced by 50%.
REPLACE COPPER WITH ALUMINIUM In the case of bus bars, the ecodesign study
revealed significant savings in CO2 equivalents by increasing the conductor thickness. However, if the bus bars are made of copper, a greater thickness means a considerable increase in costs. One alternative here is to replace copper with aluminium. If the temperature rise is equivalent to that of copper, the use of aluminium makes it possible to significantly reduce the weight of the bus bar.
At the same time, using a 2.5mm thick aluminium conductor instead of a copper version reduces the impact on global warming from 5.3 t
CO2 equivalents to 4.7 t CO2 equivalents – that is a reduction of 10%. However, the study did not take product costs into account. It is true that aluminium is a more economical metal than copper. However, the effort required to provide aluminium with corrosion protection is high.
ECODESIGN Life cycle analysis is an important tool for assessing the environmental impact of products. The results of Mersen’s latest ecodesign study clearly show that there are many options for reducing the ecological footprint of passive components. However, a comprehensive consideration of the electrical system is necessary. In the case of the bus bar, this is the prerequisite to compensate for an increase in weight due to thicker conductors, e.g. through a lighter cooling system or energy savings during the service life of the product. Not to forget, the impact transfer is also a key parameter during ecodesign activities.
Mersen
www.mersen.co.uk
JULY/AUGUST 2025 DESIGN SOLUTIONS - SUPPLEMENT 33
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