Figure 118: IE Efficiency Classes for 50 Hz 4-Pole Motors
The United States and a few other countries have already introduced legislation requiring IE2 standard motors in certain applications. Many others have plans to introduce such rules. In Europe, IE2 will become the obligatory standard from 2011. For some motors, this is also true of China in 2011, although for other motors a minimum IE1 standard will be introduced in that year replacing earlier, less rigorous, requirements.
While the focus is on motors alone, some international standardisation is being attempted for complete motor driven systems where sold as an integrated unit through a process of classification and labelling. For fan systems, for example, there are at present several different efficiency test standards in the European Union. A single, widely accepted standard would, of course, be better. For smaller water circulation pumps a definition of general efficiency levels is still lacking. One problem is that the tolerances of published pump data are currently too large to be easily classified.
Once a consensus regarding the classification of the efficiency of motor driven systems is achieved, manufacturers and users can then move to create a labelling scheme. With time, legislation on standards may follow. For the present, though, legislation-based installation of higher efficiency motors will be limited to stand alone motors.
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