UM UTILITIES MANAGER
Maintaining Belt Drives For Maximum Savings You might be surprised at how much energy is wasted when these systems operate poorly. Bill Hillman Ludeca, Inc.
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roperly maintained V-belt drives can be up to 97% efficient. Poorly operating belt drives can waste as much as 10% additional input power. Let’s consider a scenario that ignores motor losses and only considers losses in the belt drive. With electricity costs of seven cents per kWh, a rotor operating three shifts per day, five days per week and requiring 50 horsepower from a belt drive would consume over $16,000 of power annually. An additional drop in efficiency of only 5% would result in increased costs of over $800 per year. In some industries, such belt drives may comprise more than 50% of the total drive population. This example clearly shows that big savings can be realized by properly maintaining them.
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