ndustry depends on motors for pumps, fans, conveyors and more. In fact according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy Efficiency 2025 report, motor systems account for around 60% of global industrial electricity demand and roughly one quarter of all electricity use worldwide. More than half of all industrial motors in
operation are, however, estimated to be over ten years old, and almost a quarter are more than twenty years old. Running continuously, their inefficiency drains energy and productivity. As cutting emissions, boosting productivity and saving energy are of the utmost importance, upgrading motors is therefore a fast way for manufacturers to use less energy today, tomorrow, and in the future. If the more than 300 million industrial motor-
driven systems operating today were upgraded to high-efficiency versions, global electricity use could be cut by up to 10%. The tools to unlock those savings already exist, and synchronous reluctance (SynRM) motors are one of the clearest examples of how industry can act now.
ABB first introduced SynRM motors in 2011. These are designed to deliver the performance of an advanced motor without rare earth materials and with far less wasted energy inside the motor itself. In a SynRM motor, winding temperatures can
be up to 30˚C lower and bearing temperatures up to 15˚C lower than in a comparable induction motor. Less heat means less risk of failure, which means less unplanned downtime. And because there are no magnets, SynRM means operators can avoid the price volatility and
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supply-chain risk of rare earth metals. The IE6 SynRM range brings performance into the mainstream by offering IE6 Hyper-Efficiency as a standard option for key applications such as pumps, fans and compressors. Motors of this class are no longer reserved for special projects or bespoke engineering. They follow traditional power and frame-size combinations, so most of the time they can simply replace older motors without requiring a redesign of the surrounding equipment.
Over a typical 20-year lifetime, around 97% of a motor’s total cost of ownership is the electricity it uses. The purchase cost accounts for only about 2%, and maintenance about 1%. When energy dominates the cost of ownership to this extent, maximising efficiency is the only rational strategy. The step from high efficiency to hyper- efficiency may sound incremental, but in continuous-duty applications the effect quickly stacks up. In a 110 kW motor application running 8,760 hours a year at around 75% load, upgrading an existing IE4 SynRM motor and drive package to ABB’s IE6 SynRM package delivers a major long-term gain. Over a typical 20-year service life, annual savings add up to
roughly 51,200 and 92,200 kg of CO2 – the equivalent of taking 21.5 gasoline-powered cars off the road for a year. For operators already thinking of upgrading
from IE4 to IE5, going one step further to IE6 can unlock up to 76% greater energy and emissions savings. Furthermore, the additional investment required for an IE6 package over an IE4 one can be recovered in around eight months.
By cutting running costs and reducing
exposure to energy price volatility, SynRM technology helps manufacturers sharpen their competitiveness in markets where both margins
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