For the UK to achieve its carbon-neutral ambitions, businesses of all sizes must play their part in reducing carbon emissions. Discover how NORD Gear Ltd is using its extensive experience of electric motors and drive systems to help SMEs lower CO₂ emissions and save costs.
A key objective at the global climate change conference, COP26, is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Coupled with the UK’s pledge to be a carbon-neutral nation by 2050, this means businesses of all sizes have a role to play in tackling climate change.
Electric motors use about 70% of all electricity consumed in industry, this high percentage is due to the widespread use of motors for tasks like pumping, compressing and powering machinery.
Typically, large businesses are thought to account for the lion’s share of this, however, smaller businesses are estimated to account for 50% of all UK business-driven emissions. Therefore, encouraging all businesses no matter what size, to become sustainable, makes sound environmental sense.
What is sustainability?
Sustainability is used to define how we avoid the depletion of natural resources through everyday activities. In a business context, sustainability generally refers to business activities that don’t negatively impact the environment, society or communities.
Business sustainability applies to key activities such as operations, logistics, waste and environmental management along with a wide range of assets, including natural resources, social and economic assets.
Given that electric motors use about 70% of all electricity consumed in industry, from an operations perspective, it is clearly a good place to start, both from a company’s sustainability point of view and its bottom line.
The NORD ECO Service reveals the savings potential of specific applications in order to optimise energy consumption for lower CO₂ emissions as well as cost savings. NORD’s advisory concept is based on extensive experience in the production of electric motors and cooperation with customers from over 100 industries. This collective knowledge is continuously incorporated into the further development of NORD’s drives, enabling it to offer suitable products for application optimisation.
In recognition of its contribution to sustainability, NORD Gear Limited received the MHEA Sustainability Award for the NORD ECO Service at the BulkEx 25 Conference.
Measuring performance data
After the installation of the NORD ECO BOX between the drive and the power supply to measure and survey the installed drive solution, real-time data on permanent loads, load peaks and irregular conditions is recorded over an appropriate time period. The longer the period, the higher the data density, which reveals patterns and random anomalies and enables the generation of a load cycle for the entire system.
An energy measuring device in the NORD ECO BOX tracks current and voltage. It determines the effective or reactive power, i.e., the actual energy consumption, and calculates the proportional power factor.
Data evaluation
Upon completion of the NORD ECO survey, the data is uploaded to custom software developed by NORD and automatically evaluated. The customer receives the final evaluation in the form of a PDF document, which outlines the essential key data.
In the evaluation of the results, the large amount of recorded data allows for the exact reading on whether a system with the dimensions used meets the requirements of the respective application. Oversizing is one of the most common issues in the optimisation for energy efficiency.
When evaluating and interpreting the collected data, values on consumption, utilisation and TCO are broken down. The key data obtained is used for comparison with other potential drive systems in order to make the best ecological and economical decision.
Sustainability can have a positive impact on a business’s bottom line, as well as the environment.
