Everywhere something has to be moved, an electric motor could come into use. Modern electric drive technologies use power electrics circuitry to feed electric machinery in such a way that the process being driven runs at the desired rpm and the required torque. With an efficient and powerful drive system, energy and resource efficiency can be improved in a broad spectrum of industrial fields. As a result, electric drives are an important technology that transcend a number of areas of the European economy.
The value chain for electric drive technology in Germany includes major companies just as much as small and medium-sized enterprises. Their core activities range from the manufacturing of special materials and components to the delivery of complex systems. Electric drive technology itself is a broad discipline that falls under engineering science. Working in this area often requires in-depth application know-how. Since the producers of drive components, their business partners, and plant operators do not always possess such competence themselves, specialists from the Steinbeis Network are available upon request to provide the expertise needed for their projects.
Guidelines laid down by the European Union stipulate different energy efficiency classes for products that require power to operate. This is to provide users with guidance and to encourage the production and promotion of more energy-efficient products. Since machines with electric drives are either in operation or stand idle for significant lengths of time – and they incur high energy costs – it is in the interest of every industrial operator of such machinery to use energy-efficient drive models. In terms of the total, cumulated outlay on a machine, energy costs often exceed the initial purchasing outlays, even after a short period of time. To design new or even optimize existing drives, one has to go beyond simply referring to energy efficiency classes; making sound decisions that make sense in financial or technological terms, takes more detailed experimentation.
Transferring know-how and technology into different areas of energy and resource efficiency not only reduces the burden on our environment, it also bolsters Germany’s competitiveness as an industrial economy. I do hope you gain plenty of interesting insights from this latest edition of TRANSFER magazine and enjoy reading about the projects, services, and products offered by the Steinbeis Network.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Teigelkötter
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Teigelkotter is a lecturer and researcher at Aschaffenburg University of Applied Sciences and is the director of the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Energy-efficient Power Electronics for Electrical Drives and Power Storage Systems. Collaboration with the Darmstadt-based company Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH resulted in Johannes Teigelkotter and his team winning the 2015 Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Price – the Lohn Award – for their project work, which dealt with raw data analysis and precise efficiency measurements taken on electric drives. Your contact with Johannes Teigelkotter: johannes.teigelkoetter@stw.de