Improving the Energy Efficiency of Lifts

Obtaining the highest possible energy efficiency of a lift has been a challenge in the industry in the past years and remains so. As an electro-mechanic system, the lift has two areas of possible design improvement. Nowadays, in the electrical arena, the use of certain components and their control help to achieve an efficient performance: PMSM motors, 3VF inverters, regenerative systems, LED lighting, standby mode, etc. Nevertheless, we have identified two ways to further improve the efficiency. The first one is to add intelligence to the lift control, especially related to energy related issues. The second line of action is to further improve the energy reuse when the motor is generating. This is achieved by storing energy rather than just regenerating the energy to the grid.