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Powerboss Integra - Efficient Motor Control
Electric motors are utilized in the production of almost every product we purchase and yet, international research bodies calculate that "over 50% of drive-power energy could be saved if motors and drive systems became more efficient."
To satisfy the growing demand for increased productivity and reduced CO2 emissions, governments from all corners of the globe have identified, not only the need for improved energy efficiency, but also the barriers that sometimes hold companies back from investing in new technology.
Powerboss Integra is an intelligent answer.
Powerboss Integra is manufactured in the UK by Somar International Ltd, a Queens Award Winning company with a global presence in over 70 Countries. Powerboss Integra is unique by the extent to which it dynamically adjusts power to a motor as its load changes. It constantly monitors the motor's load and calculates the exact amount of power required at any time - reducing the amount of electricity used, increasing the life-span of motors, reducing maintenance requirements and reducing the amount of Carbon Dioxide produced at the point of generation.
How Powerboss Works
AC electric motors are relatively efficient at high loads (65% of full-load and up), but increasingly inefficient as loads fall,
especially below 50% of full-load.
Motors use 2 kinds of power:
- Applied Power (measured in kW) which does the work by delivering torque at the shaft of the motor.
- Reactive Power (measured in kVAR) which is necessary to energize the motor's windings by creating a magnetic field that keeps the shaft spinning, but does not do any work.
In general, motors consume Applied Power in proportion to the load, so the lighter the load, the less Applied Power they consume.
Reactive Power, on the other hand, tends to remain relatively constant (depending on each motor's copper and iron magnetizing losses) and does NOT fall proportionately with lighter loads. At high loads, the motor needs all the energy it can get, but at lighter loads the excess Reactive Power, which does no work, takes the form of heat, noise and vibration – all of which will shorten a motor's life.
Powerboss delivers exactly the right amount of energy to the motor to match the torque needed at the shaft - with no over-excitation of the motor's windings - while always remaining above the motor's stall curve.
This is done by measuring the motor's power factor (technically the phase-angle split - the lag of the current sine wave behind the voltage sine wave) 120 times a second. Given this data, Powerboss adjusts the voltage and amperage, until the total energy (kVA) exactly matches the Applied Power (kW) needed for the job.