1. Escalation of oil prices and the increasing cost of the electric power since 1974 makes it increasingly expensive and wasteful to use inefficient motors.

2. Efficiency is the ratio of energy output to energy input or energy input less losses to energy input.

3. Losses are power losses, magnetic losses, friction and windage losses and stray load losses.

4. In this report, IHP motors are between 1 & 5 HP and FHP motors are those below 1HP, Motors depending upon the supply voltage system can be DC or AC. The DC motors can be series, shut, compound or permanent magnet motor depending on the construction.

5. FHP motors can be of many varieties depending on the construction and the end use. The AC motors can be single phase or polyphase. Motors can also be universal type capable of being used on AC or DC systems.

6. Reliability and insulation aspects of the FHP motors are very important.

7. Major factors involved in the selection of appropriate motor are power ratings, of load, types of enclosures, insulation class, voltage and frequency, speed load characteristics, type of mounting and the cost of the motor. The efficiency of the motor is now receiving increasing attention.

8. FHP & IHP motors upto 10 HP were reserved for manufacture by the small scale sector. Organized sector which was manufacturing these motors at the time when this reservation came into force was however, allowed to continue manufacturing these motors. Bulk of the production today is in the unorganized sector which had paid scant attention to the quality and the efficiency of the motors produced by it. The customer also has been attaching no importance to the efficiency aspects and the market has been mainly concerned with the cast and reliability of the motors produced. The Indian Standards of the motors directly or indirectly call for very low efficiency which is achieved no matter how inferior the inputs used are. Lamination steel manufactured in India have a rolling tolerance around 8% as against 2-2.5%in the imported steel. The channeled copper wire produced in India is also of inferior standards compared to imported enameled wire.

9. The design competence available in India is limited. Most of the design under production in India were developed based on imported samples, but, the motors produced are not as good as the ones produced in Japan and other countries.

10. Most of the parties in the organized sector and some in the small scale sector have testing and developing facilities, but, these are not being used for creating original designs.

11. In India there is an everyday increasing shortage of electrical power. The cost of energy is also increasing due to increasing cost of generation. For 1 HP motor running for 4000 hrs. in a year at an energy cost of Rs.1.50 per KWH, an increase in efficiency form 70 to 72% will result in annual saving of over Rs.177. The country has got a vast population of FHP and IHP motors upto 5 HP, which is guesstimated to be around 7 million KW.                                                              Back