Which energy-efficient product categories are having the greatest impact on the current total sales volume for the Industrial market?

When asked in 2009 for a TED article, Keith Stager, industrial buildings market segment manager for Schneider Electric North American Operating Division, selected these five product categories:

• Power factor capacitors / Power quality filters / Power backup (UPS)
• Energy management systems / Submetering systems & software
• Variable frequency drives (VFDs) / Adjustable Speed Drives (ASDs)
• Energy-efficient lighting & luminaires / T8 & T5 fluorescent lamps / Electronic dimming ballasts
• NEMA TP-1 transformers / Reduced voltage starters

Surprisingly, 4 out of the 5 product categories fell provide power distribution.

In the last two years, Stager sees the changes in transformer energy efficiency as the single biggest product trend impacting the Industrial market for energy-efficient solutions. “Government regulation increased the minimum efficiency of many transformers to levels at or above those traditionally associated with ‘energy efficient’ models,” said Stager. Stager also emphasized the importance of selling the actual lifecycle costs of ownership for Green Electrical products rather than allowing customers to simply compare their initial cost with less energy efficient products. “While this increased the base cost for many types of transformers, it will pay dividends to industrial end users, as the improved electrical efficiency will lower the lifecycle costs for this equipment.”

“Schneider Electric has seen rapid growth in many energy efficient products and services,” said Keith Stager, industrial buildings market segment manager for Schneider Electric. “Some of the fastest growth has occurred in energy efficient transformers, variable speed drives, and energy engineering and analyses. We expect the demand for all these to continue to increase as the economics for all these solutions are very attractive.”

According to Joseph Flocco, strategic marketing manager for Siemens Industry, Inc., VFDs and premium motors have been popular, but energy-efficient transformers (and lighting controls) are expected to grow the most in the next few years. “Transformers that deliver higher energy efficiency will be mandated nationally for new construction. As part of an overall energy efficiency upgrade, greener transformers that can pay for themselves with the energy savings will become popular.

Strong green industrial product choices include the new generation of power supplies. Older linear design power supplies consume massive amounts of energy just in the conversion process and are only 40% to 60% efficient in doing so. But according to Ken Allwine, product marketing lead specialist, power supplies for Phoenix Contact, today's power supplies are much more efficient than designs of 5-10 years ago. “Today's primary switch mode power supplies boast efficiencies above 90 percent efficient. This directly correlates to savings in energy consumption and cost,” said Allwine.

Mark Szalkus, power quality marketing manager for GE Digital Energy, has indicated that High-Efficiency UPS systems have also enjoyed especially strong industry-wide sales growth as industrial customers try to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. “UPS systems running in ‘ECO’ mode are a strong trend that generates more opportunities for retrofit installations. Customer electrical loads keep increasing so users need more UPS backup power and PDU’s. A UPS running in ‘ECO’ mode can save up to $1.3 million of energy costs over a 10-year life cycle. This application should see dynamic growth over the next few years,” Szalkus explained.

Schneider Electric’s Stager has also seen increased industrial end user demand for active energy management solutions that combine hardware and software to manage and reduce energy costs. “These systems enable end users to minimize their energy costs by managing their energy demand in response to variable real-time energy supply costs and production requirements.”

“Given the high costs for peak demand power generation and transmission constraints in many markets, the greatest industrial market growth will likely occur in those products which enable industrial end users to manage their electricity grid demand in response to real-time energy supply costs,” explained Stager. “This reality should drive market growth for a wide range of products, including metering, power generation equipment, automatic transfer equipment, lighting controls, and building energy management systems,” said Stager.