BUSINESSES and consumers will save money on their energy bills thanks to the latest in a series of programmes launched by the Electricity Commission.
The Commission worked with certification experts Telarc SAI Ltd and the rewind industry to develop and introduce The Motor Rewind Workshop Quality Scheme – an independent certification scheme for the country’s electric motor rewinders.
The scheme will save businesses money on their energy bills and reduce New Zealand’s peak-time electricity use, potentially deferring demand for new generation.
In 2005/06, a research study identified a number of aspects of motor stock and motor systems management that could be addressed to reduce industrial electricity use. As a result of these findings, the Commission developed an electric motors programme to work with businesses and the motor industry to achieve the available electricity savings.
The first initiative was the Electric Motors Bounty Scheme, which continues to provide a direct incentive to motor users to upgrade their electric motors.
Under the bounty scheme, motor users who meet the programme’s criteria are paid for the removal (and permanent disabling) of lower-efficiency three-phase motors and are replaced with motors compliant with the 2006 Minimum Energy Performance Standard (MEPS 2006).
The programme is for three-phase motors between 22kW and 265kW and to date has removed over 33MW of inefficient motor stock from New Zealand businesses.
The new Motor Rewind Workshop Quality Scheme includes a Quality Code that covers people skills, equipment and process requirements, and management systems. It gives rewinders, who are certified as meeting the Code’s requirements, tangible evidence of their ability to provide high-quality repairs and rewinds, and provides their clients the confidence that their motor systems have been effectively and efficiently maintained.
The quality scheme will lock-in the significant benefits derived from using efficient electric motors and is forecast to deliver 30 GWh per annum of savings within the ten years of operation.
Telarc SAI Chief Executive Peter Rose says certification provides real benefits for both rewinders and their clients. “The consultative approach taken in the development of the rewinder programme has resulted in a very robust quality code and a certification scheme that meets international best practice standards.”
Auckland’s CMG Electric Motors was the first motor repair company in the country to receive certification under the scheme and service manager, David Priestley, says that although quality schemes are not new in the rewind industry, this one is different because the auditing and certification is carried out by an independent third party (Telarc).
“A poorly rewound motor not only wastes energy, but can cost its owner tens of thousands of dollars over its lifetime as well as increasing the risk of an early breakdown and the resulting downtime.
“The difficulty is that unlike a paint job on your plant or new tyres on your fleet vehicles, it is nearly impossible for a business owner to see whether a rewind job has been done well or not.
“The greatest benefit of this scheme is that an owner can be confident that because they have used a certified rewinder, they are assured of a quality job and have mitigated the risk of unnecessary and unbudgeted expense,” Priestley says.
Electricity Commission chair, David Caygill, says the new scheme is part of a suite of programmes that aims to achieve 140 GWh per annum worth of savings within 10 years – enough to power 15,500 New Zealand homes every year.
To back its belief that promoting best-practice purchase, management, maintenance and repair of electric motors will return significant energy savings for the country, the Commission is offering significant financial incentives for motor rewinders that sign up to the scheme by 30 April 2010.
All certified motor rewinders are listed on the Commission’s website at http://motorsystems.electricitycommission.govt.nz/index.htm. The Commission will also promote the use of Telarc certified motor rewinders directly to businesses to encourage them to use a certified service provider for their motor maintenance and repair work.