Energy Saving Strategies for Electric Motor Based Appliances

The role of electric motors and actuators in a domestic environment is explored, by reviewing the more common solutions adopted and by suggesting possible innovation aimed at increasing the energy saving, while maintaining the specifications of the appliances market. A significant contribution in this direction is obtained from a large use of electric drives, instead of simple electric motors, which also means to take advantage from the supply flexibility offered by static converters and from the intelligent algorithms that allow for variable speed at high efficiency. Thanks to more sophisticated algorithms, able to reconstruct important variables with little or no physical sensors, AC machines seem taking over DC or universal motors, and also the integration technology favors more compact and efficient devices. A non secondary impulse is also given by home and building automation technology, that uses system communication and status knowledge sharing to optimize the overall system performance.