John Morehead, Bison Gear vice president, strategic planning and marketing, says: "We wanted to outline the fact that the energy savings to be had with even small fractional horsepower gearmotors can offer relatively short payback times for users. This brief report identifies the scope of the problem and offers some practical application solutions that can help not only gearmotor specifying engineers, but users as well."

According to the US Department of Energy (USDOE), electric motors consume over two-thirds of the electricity used in domestic manufacturing and almost one-quarter of America's total electric energy consumption. To compound matters, the USDOE estimates only 12 per cent of users consider the benefits of lower energy operating costs for more efficient electric motor systems.

Billions of fractional horsepower (less than one horsepower or 746watts) electric motors are used in vent fans, ice dispensers, vacuums, furnace blowers, garage door openers, and thousands of other consumer applications. Millions more small motors and gearmotors are found in thousands of commercial and industrial applications involving pumping, dispensing, cooling, conveying, mixing and every facet of automation.

For example, to operate a 50 per cent efficient 1/8 horsepower (93watt) gearmotor in Illinois or California, at a 10 cents per kilowatt hour commercial rate, the annual cost will be $164.25. By comparison, the more energy efficient alternative, at 80 per cent efficiency, would only incur $102.20 in operating expense, yielding annual savings of $62.05 to the user over the life of the machine. The Improving Gearmotor Efficiency white paper (679kB PDF) can be freely downloaded from Bison Gear's web site, www.bisongear.com.