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AC drives

Low-voltage AC drives reduce energy consumption of Toyota plant

By ABB Automation Tech - Drives and Motors on 20th September 201115th December 2015

Product Details Supplier Info More products

ABB installed low-voltage AC drives in the fume extractors at GKN Autostructures’ Toyota production line, in order to reduce energy usage.

ABB provided low-voltage AC drives for the fume extractors at GKN Autostructures’ Toyota production line, in order to save money on energy usage.

The Toyota production line makes thousands of chassis cross members a week for the Auris and Avensis models of car, and welding is an important part of the process.

After assessing the energy usage of the plant, GKN identified fume extraction as an area where low-voltage AC drives could make a difference as their current units were over-sized for the application.

ABB installed two temporary drives at 55kW and 30kW for a two-week trial. Their motor speed was turned down until they were extracting a sufficient amount of air to remove the welding fumes from the inside of the plant. The company also trained staff on how to maintain the AC drives.

Key benefits of product application

As the optimum speed of the drives was found to be 42.5Hz, an average power saving of 55 per cent was produced.
In a year this would amount to £20,000 of energy savings for the plant.
By reducing the motor speed, the amount of noise produced was also reduced.
There was no negative effect on the air quality.
GKN is now installing the drives in a number of its other plants.

ABB Automation Tech – Drives and Motors

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