As rising oil prices, soaring petroleum costs and global warming dominate the news, energy-efficiency has become a familiar catchphrase. The buzz surrounding energy savings is hardly surprising when you consider world energy consumption is expected to double between 2005 and 2030[1], forcing world organizations and governments to take action. By improving the efficiency of electricity end-uses such as heating and lighting, and the expanded use of electric technologies like hybrid electric vehicles, world energy consumption could be cut by around 30 percent. However, transforming the global energy system is a major technology challenge and one in which power management plays a critical role, particularly in the key areas of automotive, appliances, lighting, renewable energy and network computing, where huge potential energy savings can be realized using existing and emerging technologies.
AUTOMOTIVE: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTIONWith road transport dominating total energy consumption in the transport sector, automakers are feeling the heat from new fuel efficiency regulations. While energy saving technologies are at hand, implementation comes at a price. Analysts project that the US government’s mandate to increase fuel economy standards by 40 percent for new cars and light trucks fleet-wide by 2020 will increase the cost of a vehicle by $1,500, although $5,000 of fuel cost savings would be recovered over the life of the vehicle[2]. Diesel vehicles play their part in the drive for a sustainable energy future, delivering fuel economy gains of 25 to 30 percent over similar sized petroleum engines[3] while hybrid automobiles today achieve more than 45 miles per gallon (mpg)[4]. By adding a plug-in feature to full hybrids, a fuel economy rating of up to 150mpg could be realized[5]. Further savings can be made by replacing heavy mechanical systems with lighter, advanced electronics such as electronic power steering systems. Diesel hybrids hold the additional promise of up to 50 percent efficiency gains in commercial vehicles[6] by combining a smaller, fuel-efficient clean diesel engine with an advanced electrical or hydraulic system that uses regenerative braking and energy storage.
APPLIANCES: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTIONElectric motors in household and commercial appliances consume 40 percent of total electricity worldwide[7] and hold the key to further significant energy savings. Regulations and labeling programs together with appliance manufacturers’ higher performance requirements are providing the momentum to replace electro-mechanically actuated AC induction or brushed DC motion systems with permanent magnet variable-speed drives that can save up to 60 percent[8] of electricity in many applications. However, the design of the electronic control unit is complex, involving digital, analog and power stages. What’s more, designers must achieve high performance at relatively low cost for the high-volume appliance market, desiring components with small form factors and a high level of integration to simplify manufacturing. Integrated design platforms like iMOTION (Figure 1) offer a compelling argument to manufacturers to adopt variable-speed motion as a higher performing and viable cost-effective alternative to electro-mechanical techniques. The integrated design platform blends the best silicon, packaging, processes and software to optimize performance while simplifying the design task to meet critical cost targets and bring products to market faster.
LIGHTING: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTIONMaking improvements to lighting is one of the fastest ways to cut energy bills and one of the easiest ways to save energy. Compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) is less expensive than light emitting diode (LED) technology and uses 75 percent less energy, produces 75 percent less heat and lasts up to 10 times longer than inefficient incandescent bulbs[9]. In spite of the many advantages, like most energy-efficient goods, the primary barrier to adoption lies in the acquisition cost. Innovative semiconductor and packaging technologies help reduce the price of a fluorescent bulb in comparison to its incandescent counterpart, which, coupled with a lower operating cost make for a more attractive value proposition. Bright opportunities are on the horizon for dimmable fluorescent lighting systems, where a further 30 percent of energy savings can be achieved[10] in the vast number of industrial, commercial and institutional buildings that currently use non-dimmable linear fluorescent lighting. Next-generation control ICs are emerging with a high level of integration and small form factor enabling designers to create new dimming product lines using several different control methods such as the IRS2530D DIM8, a unique linear dimming ballast control IC with half-bridge driver in a compact eight-pin form factor. This new device provides a competitive solution to replace inefficient incandescent bulbs in multi-level and three-way compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) applications. Requiring only several small external components, the IRS2530D significantly simplifies and shrinks circuit design and delivers a dimming system performance of up to 10 percent for compact fluorescent lamps as well as linear ballasts.
RENEWABLE ENERGY: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTIONRenewable energy too is in the spotlight. The worldwide solar inverter market is forecast to grow more than 40 percent in 2008[11] driven primarily by continued strong demand from Germany and Spain[12] as the EU targets a 20 percent share of renewable energy in final energy consumption by 2010. However, as inverters continue to push efficiency limits there are challenges to overcome. AC solar converters, for example, face weight and cost issues in addition to high switching and conduction losses due to the use of non-optimized power devices. Advances are being made by adopting lightweight, high frequency transformers, and using integrated AC modules to reduce overall system cost together with optimized power management chipsets that can cut power losses by 30 percent and increase current by 60 percent.
NETWORK COMPUTING: OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTIONWith the exponential growth of e-commerce and the Internet creating a seemingly insatiable demand for server and data storage, if ever there was an opportunity to save energy, it is inside the data center. With data centers consuming 60 billion kilowatts of power every year[13], significant energy savings could be achieved across the total server market if energy-efficient hardware and intense use of power management are implemented. Advanced power control and conversion technology like IR’s XPhase scalable multi-phase architecture and DirectFET MOSFETs, make it possible to increase system efficiency to over 90 percent. About 900kW-hr per year per server can be saved by reducing the power supply’s power loss by 40 percent and, by employing accurate real-time power monitoring IC’s to develop an advanced power system to reduce dynamic power loss, an additional 2,100kW-hr can be saved. The cost of employing these advanced power management technologies is significantly less than the savings generated and these approaches offer secondary benefits. With less heat to distribute, board level fans can run slower and acoustic noise can also be reduced.
Energy efficiency is not a buzzword for IR. It’s our mission—through power management innovation.
REFERENCES1. Energy Information Administration/International Energy Outlook 2008
2. LA Times, “Energy bill boosts fuel-economy standards”, December 19, 2007
3. Business Week, “Diesels (Still) Equal Savings”, May 27, 2008
4. Automotive News, “Fuel-saving Tactics Exist, But They’re Costly”, June 25, 2007
5. ibid
6. Diesel Technology Forum, www.dieselforumorg.com
7. EPRI, www.epri.com
8. Frances Richards, “Maximizing Efficiency,” Motion Systems Design, April 2001, page 13.
9. Energy Star, http://www.energystar.gov/
10. Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program WSUCEEP00156
11. IMS Research, “Solar Inverter Market to Grow by 40% in 2008”, July 14, 2008
12. Europe’s Energy Portal, “Renewables Make the Difference”, http://www.energy.eu/#saving
13. EPA, August 13, 2007
CAPTION
Figure 1: Integrated design platform
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