Wind Technologies Limited – Study, assessment and proof of market potentials and economics of a new electricity harvesting technology for powering rotor instrumentation in variable speed drives

如果工业逆变器供电电机（也称为变速驱动器（VSD））的平均效率提高1%，英国的电力消耗每年可减少1.6 TWh，相当于1.6亿英镑。实现这一点的一种方法，以及其他一些好处，如延长寿命，降低维护成本和更高的可靠性，是通过实时测量和监测转子的性能。然而，在大多数应用中，电池供电的仪器和无线数据传输系统安装在旋转轴上是不切实际的，因为电机需要长时间连续运行。此外，电池昂贵且体积庞大，并且会导致显著的可靠性问题。这些都阻碍了在工业VSD中采用转子测量，而转子测量可以带来显著的效率和成本效益。Wind Technologies开发了一种获得专利的能量收集技术，MAGtronics，该技术从转子端部绕组的漏磁通中提取直流电。在实验室样机上演示的MAGtronics可以为转子上的仪表电子设备提供足够的电力。该项目旨在研究、评估和量化MAGtronics技术在工业VSD应用中的经济性和市场潜力。

The UK's electricity consumption could be reduced by 1.6 TWh annually, equivalent to £160million, if the average efficiency of industrial inverter-fed motors, also known as variablespeed drives (VSDs), is increased by 1%. One way of achieving this, and also several otherbenefits such as extended lifetime, lower maintenance cost and higher reliability, is throughreal-time measurement and monitoring of rotor performance.However, powering the instrumentation and wireless data transmission system installed on therotating shaft by batteries is not practical in most applications where the motor is required torun continuously for long intervals. In addition, batteries are expensive and bulky, and cancause significant reliability issues. These have prevented the adoption of rotor measurementsin industrial VSDs where it can bring substantial efficiency and cost benefits.Wind Technologies has developed a patented energy harvesting technique, MAGtronics thatextracts DC electricity from the leakage magnetic flux of rotor end-windings. MAGtronics,demonstrated on laboratory prototypes, can supply sufficient power for the instrumentationelectronics on the rotor.This project aims to study, assess and quantify the economics and market potential ofMAGtronics technology for industrial VSD applications.