Industrial Speed Control: Are PM Couplings an Alternative to VFDs?

Recent surveys indicate that fans/blowers and pumps comprise between 40% and 50% of all industrial loads (rated by energy consumption), which accounts for several hundred billion kilowatthours in the United States annually. It is important to perform these most fundamental of industrial functions as efficiently as possible; however, the traditional means of regulating the flow from these loads, by throttling valves for pumps and baffling vanes for fans, are well known to be inefficient. The wasted energy is dissipated as heat in the throttling systems themselves, as well as in the fluids being circulated in the industrial processes.