Increasingly, businesses and individuals are looking to cut their electric bills and reduce their carbon footprints. A good place to start is to identify how electric energy is being used. Texas Instruments cites an estimate that electric motors and power supplies account for more than half of electric-energy use in industrial, commercial, and residential settings worldwide, and that only about 10% of such power comes from renewable sources.
To reduce energy consumption from both renewable and nonrenewable sources, you can add intelligent variable-frequency digital control loops to your motor-drive and power-supply designs. The use of such control loops can cut energy use up to 25% or more, promising significant energy-efficiency improvements in many applications areas.