Boost operating profits with the Energy Recovery System

Wasted energy? Not with us! Save tomorrow’s money today, and recover unused excess energy from your system’s lowering and braking movements, thanks to the Energy Recovery System from MSF-Vathauer – an innovative system already successfully operated by many users.

Sustainability 4.0: The ERS offers direct energy recovery in drive technology.

In the presentation – With the Energy Recovery System, unused braking energy can be fed back into the system network with virtually no loss.

It’s easier than you think! Now, you can recycle energy and reduce energy costs from the moment you switch on your system.

Sustainability plays an important role these days, especially in trade and industry. The Energy Recovery System from MSF-Vathauer combines two worlds – meeting the needs of the user but also supporting sustainability, energy efficiency and the environment. With these and many other crucial advantages, the new technology is making big waves in the age of Industry 4.0.

A success story that holds promise for the future

Even as the ERS was still being developed in cooperation with the “Future Energy – Institute for Energy Research” (iFE) at the OWL University of Applied Sciences, the team was honoured with the “OWL Transfer Award 2014”. And the winning streak just kept going from there. In 2016, the Energy Recovery System was awarded the Industriepreis 2016 Best Of in the drive and fluid technology category. At Poland’s largest automation trade show, the Automaticon, the ERS took the gold medal in 2016. The ERS also helped German drive manufacturer Vathauer place among the top ten innovations in the German energy efficiency competition, PERPETUUM 2016.

A new level of decentralised drive automation

AC standard motors and servodrives are commonly used in drive technology. With many units already installed, the Energy Recovery System is multi-functional and can be used or adapted for any number of applications where braking energy is generated. The ERS system takes excess energy (braking) and feeds it directly back into the unit (energy recovery). This system takes the place of brake resistors, helping to conserve energy. The days of energy-destroying brake resistors are numbered, as the ERS prepares to take their place.

With an impressive roughly 98% rate of efficiency, this system produces palpable energy savings as soon as it’s installed. This is particularly significant for systems in continuous operation.

“The potential energy savings are a main attraction for consumers, but so are the low investment costs. For a company controller, it’s not often that you see the ROI, or return on investment, after just a few months,” explains Marc Vathauer, CEO of MSF-Vathauer Antriebstechnik.

Thanks to its compact design, the ERS saves space in the switch cabinet – another advantage for the user, as well as for the equipment manufacturer. The system can both be incorporated in new plants and installed as an add-on in existing plants, taking any plant to a whole new level of sustainable energy. The product is suitable for either centralised or decentralised installation, making it thoroughly customer-friendly. The Energy Recovery System was designed such that it is also suitable both frequency converters and servo regulators.

And now, the biggest highlight of all: the ERS has a peak performance of 5kW and requires no additional cooling components in the plant and no EMC components either, since the ERS can be used without any additional filters, throttles or other EMC provisions. Without braking resistors, the switch cabinet no longer heats up, and the cooling unit is no longer needed. The potential applications include any areas involving lifting or lowering movements. This means conveyor systems, intralogistics, winding machines, lifts, machine tools, packing machines and much more.