Energy efficiency and grid capability functions

Siemens helps reducing energy consumption and costs, while increasing the sustainability of the operations

Fighting the rising energy costs, ensuring regulatory compliance, optimizing maintenance, and increasing machine reliability, while striving for the lowest environmental footprint of the business. These are just a few of the major challenges industries face in today's world. Turning the attention to the drive applications within the plants should be an obvious choice, as the drive systems are the main energy consumers in industry. Optimization of the drives thus offers a great chance for higher efficiency and sustainability in industrial operations.

Siemens is offering an energy efficiency concept that continually and systematically reduces the power consumption of machines and equipment and thereby boosts the competitive advantage of industrial producers. When implementing energy-efficient solutions, ­Siemens not only draws from its vast expertise and domain know-how, but also engages digitalization tools to combine the real and the digital worlds and enable a continuous loop of optimization.

Six steps towards energy-efficient drives

1 Application assessment

It is important to start with an evaluation of what drive and motor to use for your specific application. Overall drive system optimization is the key – combining cutting edge technology with digital solutions can achieve energy savings of 60 % or more. Thus, instead of pondering over the parameters of the individual drive system elements in isolation, it is advisable to always take into consideration the interplay of the motor, converter, application, and the entire operations.

Finding the right solution for your specific case might be complex, because ­Siemens offers a wide range of energy-efficiency functions in ­SINAMICS drives (while the cascading function might be great for pump applications, the energy buffering feature is more suitable for stacker crane apps). Our experts are always happy to consult and advise on each specific use case.

Customer Services for Drive Systems are supporting in this step with their offering of Energy Performance Contracting, Energy & Decarbonization audits and Retrofit for drive systems.

Siemens also offers numerous tools to make the right decision easy. One of them being the ­SinaSave software application, which can help you to calculate how soon you will recoup your investment if you purchase an energy-efficient drive.

2 Drive dimensioning

As the next step then comes the definition of the optimal dimensions of the drive. Proper dimensioning ensures that the drive system is configured to deliver the appropriate amount of power for the application. This prevents energy waste and promotes maximum efficiency, helping to reduce operational costs. Furthermore a well-dimensioned drive system ensures increased lifespan, improved performance, reduced maintenance and enhanced safety. ­SIZER for ­Siemens Drives (integrated in the TIA Selection Tool) engineering tool is the perfect starting point for finding the correct drive size.

3 Simulation and virtualization

With the help of the digital twin of a drive, simulation and virtual commissioning could be easily performed. Through simulation, you can create virtual models of drive systems and test different configurations, operating parameters, and control strategies. This allows for testing and fine-tuning the system's energy efficiency before installation. You can simulate the drive system's behavior and interactions with other equipment to detect and rectify any inefficiencies or potential energy losses. This approach helps in optimizing the system even before it is put into operation, saving time and resources. ­DriveSim Designer and ­DriveSim Engineer are the tools that ­Siemens offers for drive simulation.

4 Efficient use

Use innovative drive technology to reduce your energy consumption! The energy-efficient components and systems developed by ­Siemens can cut the energy consumption of your plant. Important components in an energy-efficient plant are, for example, frequency converters with regenerative feedback functions for applications with variable speeds or soft starters for fixed-speed drives. With its Smart Power Management system, ­Siemens is also offering solutions that permit to compensate peak loads, recover braking energy, and supply the machine with power in case of grid faults. Among other energy-efficient functions of ­SINAMICS drives are Eco mode, energy buffering, automatic flux adaption, clean power, DC link, ­PROFIenergy, hibernation mode, bypass operation and cascading.

5 Connectivity

The next step is to get operational data out of the drives in order to gain transparency of the energy consumption of the drive systems and to lay foundations for further analysis and optimization. To do so ­Siemens is able to provide ­Drive ­Connector ­SINAMICS Industrial Edge app and various IoT gateways.

6 Optimization

Once connected, the drives send data to Industrial Edge and Cloud apps (Analyze MyDrives, ­SIDRIVE IQ Fleet), where real-time monitoring of performance and energy consumption of drive systems can happen. This allows operators and maintenance personnel to identify inefficiencies or anomalies promptly. By detecting and addressing energy-consuming issues in real time, energy waste can be minimized, leading to improved energy efficiency.

Analysis of large volumes of data related to drive system performance and energy consumption can be executed as well. By leveraging this data, patterns, trends, and energy usage profiles can be identified with the help of AI. This analysis helps in gaining insights into the energy consumption patterns of the drive system, allowing for targeted optimization efforts to be made.