Impacts on Equipment
Typical manufacturing industries that utilize small electric motors and are impacted by the SMR include paper and printing machinery; HVAC blowers and fans; pumps and pumping equipment; facility maintenance equipment; packaging machinery; cleaning and floor-care equipment; service industry machinery; and material-handling equipment, such as conveyors.
An interesting and important consideration is that this mandate affects OEMs as equipment manufacturers and as motor users themselves. For example, a manufacturer in any of the previously mentioned industries also may have to purchase the motors for its own equipment, such as a conveyor, and must retrofit with new, compliant motors if and when the motor in the equipment fails. The motor manufacturers may not build non-compliant motors after March 9, 2015, but they may continue to sell them until the current inventory is depleted.
OEMs considering replacement of shaded pole or capacitor-type motors with these new emerging designs will need to re-engineer their products and validate their motors. OEMs will incur costs to redesign their products to accommodate larger, more-efficient motors or to purchase a stockpile of replacement motors of the correct size.
Facility managers and electrical contractors are impacted by this mandate because they benefit from the energy improvements and cost reductions. However, they also must work with OEMs to make sure more efficient motors are available and replaceable.
Architects, contractors, building owners and facility managers also will be impacted by the re-engineered products that utilize shaded pole and capacitor-type motors, which must comply with the efficiencies required for the SMR. Because the size of the single-phase motors will change in length, these machines and products may no longer fit into their previous space. Moreover, because of the motors’ added internal materials, the price of the motors will increase, which may increase equipment prices.
Facility Maintenance
Large facilities, like hospitals, universities, office parks and airports, for example, use boilers or furnaces. To ensure the heating systems are working at full efficiency and end users maximize the productivity of their equipment, routine maintenance and cleaning should be done. Fouled tubes are the fastest way to lose heat-exchange efficiency and can add thousands in extra fuel costs. Preventative maintenance programs for boilers improve safety, minimize downtime, decrease replacement costs, and reduce energy and water usage. Operations and maintenance costs can account for as much as 60 to 80 percent of a building’s life-cycle costs. When equipment does not have to be repaired or replaced as often, that percentage drops significantly.
To implement this maintenance requires the use of portable power cleaners, which utilize ODP motors that fall under the DOE’s mandate. These motors will make commercial power cleaners more efficient and will provide lower operating costs. By now, the equipment manufacturers hopefully are aware that as of March 9, motors used in this product must comply with the new SMR.
HVAC accounts for most of the motor use in many commercial buildings. The motors, fans or pumps used for HVAC thermal distribution from a building’s central HVAC system may be smaller in size and less economical to replace, but, in adherence with the SMR, when these motors fail, they must be retrofitted with the newly engineered high-efficiency motors.