Techno Economic Assessment of IE3 Electric Motors in the Medium Size Brazilian Industry

Searching for better efficient energy consumption, actions aimed at induction motors replacement have been consolidated as one of the main investments toward improve energy efficiency. For countries of wide range in electricity tariffs caused by geographic issues, industrial companies operating in different regions have difficulty to define how to direct the investment for energy efficiency actions between your industrial facilities. Thus, this paper aims to present how to direct the financial resources to perform the electric motors replacement to only one industrial facility from techno economic analysis through simulation of different scenarios for each case. Three regions of Brazil named Southeast, Midwest and Northeast were chosen for this analysis due to the highlight in their electricity tariffs characteristics. Regional aspects were taken into account, e.g., electricity escalation rate and electricity tariff as well as technical issues related to how limit the load of the new motors with reduced rated power after replacement. The results are promising because the cost-effectiveness of motors replacement in a medium-size industrial company always profitable regardless economic variations. The higher net savings defines what facilities in different regions of Brazil will have its motors replaced. So, the cost-effectiveness of motors replacement increases while electricity escalation rate, tariff and motor partial load increase.