New NEMA Motors Project Rolls Out at Siemens
Siemens goes for NEMA Premium market to drive growth in the Americas and around the world.
Dipl.-Ing. Juergen Fuchsloch, Siemens AG's product manager for NEMA motors, and John Caroff, manager of marketing for low voltage motors at Siemens Energy and Automation Inc., put on a very interesting show to introduce Siemens' new line of NEMA motors.
Now, a 40 hp 440 VAC motor may not strike the electronics geeks among us as low voltage, but to Siemens, used to producing turbines for power plants and other high voltage applications, the common motors seen in most process plants, the 1 to 40 hp versions, are in truth, low voltage motors. Siemens
is the largest motor manufacturer in the world, but not in the NEMA motor range...not even close.
Working in secret, Siemens has been able to make some significant advances that will allow them to rule the NEMA Premium small motor category. Fuchsloch pointed out that this is, in his view, in keeping with Siemens' new branding statement, "Driving innovation to shape the future."
They selected the NEMA Premium market niche because it is ruled by motor efficiency. The more efficient the motor is, compared to what a plant is currently using, or what other motor they might buy, the less price sensitive the market is, according to Fuchsloch. The new NEMA series has the "best efficiencies in the industry," Fuchloch says, and appears to be able to prove it with a new tool called the SinaSave calculator. The calculator does efficiency comparison with any Siemens product and any other motor (user input) to produce a time-to-payback calculation. In several examples, Fuchsloch showed a payback/breakeven point of less than six months.
John Caroff went on to detail the innovations: the die cast copper rotor (the first one available anywhere), the die-cast aluminum motor housing, the interchangeable flange mountings, and other end user and OEM friendly design advantages.
Stock will be available between now and the end of the year. Previous models will continue to be manufactured until the supply of new NEMA motors is equal to the demand. Information will be available at
Siemens Energy and Automation Inc. by the end of February.
