The Next Generation Motor

There has been a push toward higher efficiencies in the petrochemical industry. This can be seen in the revisions of IEEE 841, which is expected to promote NEMA Premium as the standard, sometime in the near future. Leading motor manufacturers have been motivated by these industry-driven efficiency improvements to investigate the optimization of manufacturing processes and designs to further improve the efficiency of three-phase induction motors. It is very important to make the industrial users fully understand how losses are generated and identify the factors that reduce these significantly, at an acceptable cost for the investment of the motor. Life-cycle costs should also be investigated. This article focuses on the new technologies, designs, and processes being introduced to improve the efficiency of three-phase induction motors.