Thank you for tuning back into the automation
podcast. My name is Sean Tierney from Insights
and Automation.
And this week, I meet up with Iren
Sprock from Siemens to learn all about their
g two twenty clean power drive. I also
wanna thank Siemens for sponsoring this episode so
I can bring it to you completely ad
free. So with that said, I wanna welcome
back to the show Ivan from Siemens
to talk about
VFDs.
And, this is something we've been wanting to
talk about for a while. But before you
jump into your presentation, Ivan, could you introduce
yourself to our audience for those who maybe
didn't catch your last appearance?
Thanks a lot for just having me,
back to the show here.
I got a slide up here that introduces
myself. I'm the product manager for
the Synamix
variable frequency drives
for Siemens here in The US. So, yeah,
happy to be back on your show. And
what I would,
like to talk to you about and discuss
with you is our latest
variable frequency drive. It's the g two twenty
and specifically
the clean power drive.
This is a
best in class solution for a grid friendly
power quality
when using variable frequency drives. So Sean, you
audience may be wondering
why we should discuss
power grids and variable frequency drives, but I'll
just say
if you've been around variable frequency drives or
VFDs as I'll refer to them, you've likely
had conversations or heard something about VFDs creating
or generating harmonics on the power grid. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe you've, you know,
someone in the audience has been involved in
a situation where
harmonic current and associated
voltage distortion on your plants electrical grid were
causing
overheating on transformers and cabling
or potentially causing circuit breakers to trip their
fuses to open. Or maybe you're just an
engineer looking to select
and specify a variable frequency drive and
you may need to answer some questions about
harmonics that typical VFDs generate. You can relate
to any of those or if you're just
interested to know more about this topic, we'll
invite you to stay tuned here for the
next thirty five to forty minutes
for discussion on power quality and VFDs.
So, Sean,
I'd like to just ask you, have you
heard anything
about the power grid lately?
Well, yes. I've heard lots about the power
grid. I know that this is more and
more becoming a big issue
because when you have a lot of VFDs
producing all kinds of harmonics,
that can cause lots of problems like the
ones you just mentioned. But, also, the utilities
are starting to to see this and saying,
why are we putting up with this? So
aside from the power grid needing to be
hardened against
all kinds of things, everything from EMTs to,
you know, just, you know, Yahoo's shooting
transformers in the middle of nowhere.
This has been a, I think, a big
and growing issue. That's why I'm glad that
you're on the talk about this because in
the preshow,
we just really I really got a sense
of how important this was, you know, in
2025
and going into 2026.
Lots of conversations about the grid and really
how the grid electrical grid is being stretched.
And with all of the, you know, data
centers being built, you know, lots of conversations
about how power is gonna be supplied with
those. In other words, I think for maybe
the first time in twenty five to thirty
years,
they're anticipating
our usage
and power requirements going up.
So that's why I think all these utilities
and plant operators are interested in the grid.
So some reasons to discuss then the power
grid and variable frequency drives
is variable frequency drives very useful for motor
control, but left unchecked,
they can introduce
several power quality issues. Harmonics, as you can
see on the screen here, typical VFDs use
rectifiers that generate nonlinear currents
that also distort the voltage waveform and these
harmonics can propagate through the electrical grid. And,
you know, with that voltage waveform potentially
affecting other equipment or
you know at worst case other utility customers.
These voltage fluctuations
can lead to flicker in lighting
and perhaps even take other sensitive devices offline.
Typical VFDs some of them can negatively impact
power factor. Again, something that's of interest to
utilities
and plant operators.
And just you know there could be some
resonant frequencies set up that may interfere with
other things. So those are all
things that yeah, harmonics,
and you know, the voltage fluctuation, things that
are
unfavorable I'll say.
And what I'd like to do here Sean
is just gonna introduce,
you know, what I want to tell you
is
we have a very unique product here in
the SINAMICS g two twenty clean power drive.
Three advantages of this product we'll wanna talk
about here through through the course of this
podcast.
One is the clean power technology. So you
can see total harmonic current distortion is well
under the strictest harmonic standards there at less
than 2%.
It delivers near unity power factor under almost
any load conditions.
And I'll just say, you know, there has
been technologies out there that have
been able to produce, you know, those two
attributes of of, you know, low
current harmonic distortion and near unity power factor.
But what's most unique about,
this product we're that we're launching here is
the compact
space saving design, and it is the smallest
low harmonics drive in the market. And also
available, it's all self contained, so there's nothing
extra to install. It's all in one footprint.
And I'll give you an example here. This
product is released up to a through 150
horsepower now.
By the end of the year we'll have
it released up through 200 horsepower. So this
is a relatively
new product on the market. But that 200
horsepower drive
imagine this Sean less than three feet tall,
less than 12 inches wide, and about 14
inches deep.
That's a 200 horsepower drive,
that will guarantee these,
things I've got got here with low distortion
and near unity power factor. You know, that's
not something I would have thought of is
that these clean drives are
more clean power drives are typically larger than
their standard cousins.
And so the fact that you've been able
to get these smaller and closer to the
sizes of the standard drive is pretty impressive.
You're quite we we'd like to think so.
Let's dig into, you know, first of all,
if, you know, I I said variable frequency
drives or typical very free frequency drives can
generate harmonics. So
why why would people wanna use VFDs?
Turns out variable frequency drives are really good
at two things. One,
saving energy,
and two, improving processes. So
just, you know, kind of as a reminder,
why do people wanna use variable frequency drives?
Just a reminder. Yeah. Half the world's electricity
is used by
motors operating pumps and fans and compressors.
And just as a reminder, Sean, if you've
got a 20 horsepower motor
operating and I just use twelve hours a
day, two sixty five days a year,
I used average commercial power
rate of 12¢ a kilowatt hour, that electric
motor is gonna cost you running across the
line around $5,500.
If I operate that motor
with a VFD and I've got opportunity
to adjust the speed, you know, based on
demand,
electricity cost is half of it. So $2,500
And that even gets more
grows your savings grow if I consider a
100 horsepower motor
operating twelve hours a day,
two fifty days a year, again, with that
same kilowatt hour. You know, that
running that electric motor across the line is
gonna cost you, you know, I've got on
the screen here $28,000.
I've got the opportunity to adjust speed and
control speed as I do with the VFD,
and the application can, of course,
doesn't have to be run at full speed.
You know, just typical savings again is gonna
it's gonna cost you less than half to
run that electric motor. So I like to
put those numbers in front of people, Sean,
because I think people lose sight of how
much it costs to run an electric motor.
So any thoughts on that? Yeah. You know,
when I first got in this industry back
in '90, this was big. This was talked
about all the time. They were like, if
you get a fan or pump and you
don't have a VFD on it, you're just
wasting money. And and and to some extent
too soft status. But the point being that,
you know, if the way you drove your
car was you just put the pedal to
the metal everywhere you went,
you could just realize that's not gonna be
very efficient, you know, fuel wise.
And so, you know, putting aside the process
thing, because many processes, you can't just do
a cross line starter. Right? It would be
great for the process, but,
typically, fans and and pumps,
I mean, the the amount of savings
is tremendous. And I know for a very
long time, this was, you know, it was
up there with, lighting, up upgrading your lighting
in your plant. You're just installing VFDs or
upgrading VFDs from very old VFDs.
A lot of times, the cost savings and
the rebates would make the the project pay
for itself within a year or two, if
not sooner. So it's, for anybody listening, I
know all the old timers out there are
like, yeah, know all about this, but maybe
he's listening and you haven't taken a look
at that, definitely call your, local representative and
ask him about energy savings with VFDs because
it's huge. I mean, it's just massive. As
you show in this slide, you know, but
it's it's it's just it's it's super. Now
at your second point, processes, yeah, some processes
I mean, they wouldn't be possible if all
you had was across the line. You know,
we we think about, you know, needing a
very precise control, very precise movement, maybe not
servo control,
but in some cases, you know, just, you
know, starting the VFD across the line would,
you know, would break things. Right? You need
to coast up and coast down, and, you
know, be able to vary the speed based
on the but what part of the what
product you're making sometimes. But let me turn
it back to you. Sure. So
one of the links that I've got in
my resources is a a a link to
it's called CNA Save. It's just our Siemens
name for our,
energy savings calculator. So somebody, you know, with
that link, somebody could go in there and
very quickly,
you know, put in their own
horsepower and speed profiles and energy costs and
see for themselves,
you know, more dialed in. So yeah. And
I liked your your conversation about the process.
I mean, so I think what I'm trying
to establish on this slide really is
VFDs are very useful and very effective
at helping
manage costs and improve process. So, you know,
VFDs are not going away. So now let's
then dive into figuring out, okay, how do
we handle
harmonics that typical drives
generate. So
first, Sean, let's start with a conversation about
what are line harmonics, and I've just got
a few slides here to talk about that.
But we'll relate it to,
you know, what we call linear loads, which
is like an induction motor or resistors or
incandescent lamps. They draw sinusoidal
or linear current proportional to voltage. So in
other words,
for the audience on the looking at this
slide here you can see very nice looking
sine waves.
Yeah. In this country of course that's coming
from our power plants at 60 Hertz.
Looks very nice, right?
Well, when you put a nonlinear load
on your electrical distribution center system, yeah, and
nonlinear loads are any power electronic device that's
converting AC power to DC power. So that's
what we're doing in a VFD, we're converting
AC power to DC power. But also computers,
you know, that's obviously not the same talking
in the same magnitude of power, but this
is what computers are doing. Same thing with
LED lamps now,
Discharge lighting.
And very interestingly enough, this is also what's
going on in EV charging stations. You know,
you're converting
AC power to DC power, so that's considered
a nonlinear load. And what happens there in
a nonlinear load is
it doesn't draw, it just draws power in
pulses
when the capacitors
need to charge.
So think about these capacitors charging more at
the top of the waveform,
And that's then what causes these variations in
both voltage and current,
from the fundamental sine wave. And you know,
in very simple terms, that's what these harmonics
are. Yeah. They're
non sinusoidal,
they're nonlinear,
and even since it's changing with the applied
voltage. So there's some things that they, you
know, negative impacts we'll say. And again, for
the audience that's looking at the slide there,
you can kind of see some of these
nonlinear
currents stacked up there. Point is it creates
a much more complex waveform,
and there's current flowing at those multiple frequencies.
So Sean, I've got for for people that
are maybe having a hard time visualing this
up, I've got a little example. So
can you think, Sean, of a musical group
that sings in parts? Mhmm.
Even if we can't mention them on the
air, you can we can all think of,
you know, a group that's in Yep. Yep.
Yeah. Exactly. So here we go. We've got
a musical group singing in different parts, and
these different musical parts are sung at different
pitches or frequencies. And that all blends together
to make a richer sound. Right? Well, we
can
think of that fuller sound that's flowing at
those frequencies. That's kinda like more current flowing
in there. So, you know, to back to
our harmonics example. So,
yeah, there's world flowing at these other frequencies
other than 60 Hertz, and that kind of
fundamentally becomes a problem we need to deal
with. And then in that in that group,
Sean, can you think of someone what does
it sound like when they sing off key?
Absolutely. Who doesn't sound good. Does it so
maybe we'll think of that as voltage distortion.
So we gotta gotta do something about that
too. So Yeah. I'd like to you know
what? For me, you know, to and I
think the charts for those listening, I think
the charts really spell it out. They're color
coded, and they show the different harmonics.
And for me, I think charting it is
kinda one of the ways to understand it
visually because if you think about let's say
you have a large rock, a medium rock,
and a small rock, and you throw all
three at the same time into a pond.
You can visually see the big ripple, the
medium ripple, and the small ripple, but it's
really hard for you to understand as they're
spreading out
what the effect would be on, you know,
any any, you know, maybe toy boats that
your kids have in the water or grandkids
have in the water. Right? And so it
it's it's a very tough for for human
beings to try to keep in their head
more than three things happening at a time.
Right?
And so and so I I love seeing
the chart here, and it shows the relationship
to when the capacity of charging and how
that affects the primary and the sympathetic
and the different waveforms. And I just know
that these are, you know, inducing currents,
And each one of these are inducing currents,
but it's like that throwing multiple
rocks into into a body of water. I
just can't I, you know, I need to
see it. I need to draw it out.
I just can't, you know, understand. Hey. Well,
that me means this little boat's gonna go
to the Northwest because, you know, you know,
and this is where I think it's it's
easy to overlook the effects that these harmonics
have because it is it does get kinda
complicated to visualize. Yeah. No. I I like
that analogy of, the rocks and the water
too. You can see those wave forms and
yeah. It becomes, you know, more current flow
that has to be dealt with. And and
the voltage
notching is something again, talking about typical VFDs.
I've got a little picture here of yeah,
showing in the center of the screen there.
Just main section of a typical VFD with
the rectifier front end that's a six pulse,
standard six pulse rectifier in there that's what
you know is very very common. You can
see the DC link capacitors
in the middle there, and of course the
inverter section on the output which is recreating
that sine wave. But
let's turn our attention to you know the
input waveform that we're showing. You can see
you know drawing power creating those that notched
waveform.
And really what I want to point out
on this slide is
okay that's kind of at the top of
the slide I've got a picture of OneDrive
doing that that you know on any given
distribution system there's a variety of loads right?
Each with its own signature that interacts with
each other,
So you end up in trying to show
down in this down in the orange
section here of this drawing. Okay all of
these different loads combined with their own signature
to create kind of a
system signature if you will. And then what
happens is, okay, you've got standards that we'll
talk about here a little bit, but
standards and specifications,
you know, you'll see if you're an engineer
dealing with harmonics, you know, they often refer
to this point of common coupling. So that's
kind of what I'm trying to come across
on this
slide here as well is when you have
a system, you know, it's very useful to
identify this point of common coupling where you're
gonna measure,
these harmonics. So you'll see that in a
lot of specifications.
Not sure if you ever seen that, Sean.
No. And and and just the point of
common coupling,
when you're saying that you're referring to
go ahead. Give me that again. What what
does that actually mean? If you notice over
on the right side here, we've got a
different loads. I'm showing I'm showing a couple
of different drives. I'm showing few motors operating
across the line,
each with their own signature,
but that ends up creating, you know, on
the distribution
system,
you know, a system signature. So we need
some place,
you know, to decide,
you know, if you're trying to meet a
spec, well, tell me then where I have
to measure it.
So that becomes that's what this point of
common coupling is. And I just wanted to
get that term out there
because people have often heard of this. Sometimes
it's
right at the
we'll say the you know connection to the
Utility Transformer.
If you're a plant operator maybe you've got
a handful of buildings over here and you
want to define
a point of common coupling between some of
these other buildings.
Mhmm. But it's just
a,
yeah, place to define
for a measurement.
So in this case they have let's say
they have a transformer here. This transformer feeds
two, let's say, VFDs and then two motor
starters.
So they're exactly at that point, you know,
on the outfeed of the transformer,
which we know we have four loads on,
to be that point of common coupling. Because
what's gonna happen is we have all these
different loads, so we have all these different
waveforms. We have the different harmonics from the
VFDs. So that's gonna average together to give
us a a waveform
that's the
combination of those four devices,
And that's point of common coupling. Alright, I'm
with you. Thank you. Exactly.
Again, just one other factor, just to talk
about a factor that
impacts the magnitude
of harmonics,
is
something else you'll see in a lot of
specifications
is what's called the relative short circuit ratio.
And really this is just a metric that's
used
when evaluating
the grid's ability to support
variable frequency drives and and really any other
nonlinear load, which, you know, we mentioned LED
lighting and there's other nonlinear loads out there
too. But what it does is compares the
strength of the grid or distribution system maybe
that you have in your plant
to the size of the connected load. And
of course,
this ratio
and therefore the magnitude of the harmonics is
impacted by
transformer size,
by what you all got connected if I've
got other reactors,
how much cable I've got connected.
And then probably most importantly
by load size
and type. In other words, by load size
I mean, okay is this
50 horsepower or 200 horsepower?
And by type meaning, is this 300 horsepower
running
across the line or is it on a
with a VFD?
I like to give an example there, Sean.
Water treatment facilities
often
you hear a lot about harmonics in those
facilities because often
there's such big
motor loads being controlled by VFDs
and that is
by far
the largest represents the largest percentage of load
on that transformer. Right? So I've got
to imagine kind of this remote water treatment
facility,
you know, what's out there? Probably
four to five to six depending on how
big it is, you know, huge motors
running pumps, right? And not much else. So
there's an example of people that would be
you know very concerned about how much you
know what percentage of nonlinear load do I
have
on my transformer?
So that's
kind of all relates back to this short
circuit ratio. Again, something you see in a
lot of specs. So just trying to give
some definition around what that is. Sure if
you got anything, any questions or anything you
wanted to add or? No. I I appreciate
that. Appreciate you going over. No. Kind of
a point I'm trying to make is, you
know, there's multiple factors that impact the magnitude
and lots of things to think about and
figure out. It's like,
wow. If you're a plant engineer with responsibilities
for a power grid, wouldn't it be great
not to have to think about this? And
I guess ask you to remember, you know,
why I showed you at the beginning of
this is,
well, our
our product,
you know, take that
whatever's I drive is
giving you no
distortion at the terminals, no, you know, near
unity power factor. So it becomes something that
can really simplify.
Yeah. Make make make a life of a
plant engineer much simpler by specifying
products that are you know low harmonic content.
So let's talk just okay so we kind
of defined
variable frequency drives. We we like them. They
do a lot of good things. But okay
there's some things going on with harmonics.
Okay so what's what's necessarily
bad about these harmonics? So I've got a
couple slides here showing that'll walk us through
the effects
of,
you know, kind of the pain points of
harmonics. So,
you know, with regards to transformers,
generally, remember we talked about there's there's more
current flowing at these other frequencies. So that's
gonna
induce some additional heating
and additional losses,
likely to see some insulation stress,
possibly even some
resonant frequencies that are gonna set up core
vibrations.
So those are some of the, you know,
undesirable things with generators.
You know, there's
most
good sized facilities have a standby generator. Right?
Well,
now if I'm operating a lot of nonlinear
loads,
I'd really start to need need to start
to pay attention to, okay, is my generator
gonna work to power these nonlinear loads? So
something to consider there. And what what ends
up happening is you people
may have to oversize that generator
Mhmm. To be able to run these nonlinear
loads.
And
dropping down to cables and conductors again, if
I've got more current flowing through them, that's
gonna increase your cable losses
due to increased cable resistance caused by the
skin effect, which is something that in tendency
of alternating currents to flow
primarily along the surface of the conductor.
Yeah. Increasing
or decreasing its ability to, you know,
do its job and really deteriorating
the the insulation,
due to excessive heating.
So those are all, you know, negative things
that happen when you have a lot of
harmonics. Right? Alright. Looking at one more slide
of just some,
you know, negative impact on circuit breakers or
that may trip prematurely
or fuses that may open
prematurely. Again, thermomagnetic
circuit breakers have these bimetallic strips that may
be impacted by those additional currents flowing.
Electronic type circuit breakers use current sensors which
need to account for,
you know, these harmonic currents. Yeah. Most circuit
breakers are designed to trip at a zero
crossover point. So with these distorted currents, you
know,
there may be some spurious zero crossovers.
And then kind of some similar problems with
fuses again due to heating effect. This RMS
current
and non uniform current distribution through the fuse
element. You know, what tends to happen is
people may have to oversize
fuses.
But of course, I'm also, you know, to
match that actual RMS curve that's flowing with
these harmonics. But okay, that's not necessarily
unless somebody's out there measuring it, they don't
know what that is. Right, Sean? And I've
got codes to meet. I can't just put
a way bigger fuse in.
So, you know, it kind of becomes this
balancing act. Right? Yep. So
Yeah. So those are all things, you know,
that happen when you have a lot of
harmonics. Again, I can kind of summarize them
on one slide here.
Line, you know, line harmonics produced by these
nonlinear loads cause overheating,
inefficient operation, you know, and
more losses,
perhaps some premature line tripping,
perhaps some
system oscillations and instability,
perhaps noise,
and and yeah. And reduced power factor. So
none of those are good. Right? In general,
reduced
efficiency,
increased power loss and energy costs, and of
course then higher carbon emissions as well. And
yet to kind of summarize this all up,
current distortion
is is bad, infects your all your systems.
You gotta account for it. Voltage distortion
is often
the one that will get people that it's
much worse because that goes
all other systems as well if if left
unchecked. So that's my kind of my summary
slide there of effects of harmonics and why
we wanna do things to control them. So
any any thoughts or questions there, Sean? No.
I think I think the slide does a
good job of showing that, you know, this
isn't not just for your
VFD, VSD.
It's the other things on the line too
that you're affecting. Right? So
so now I'm sure some of the, some
of those, listening or watching have have stories
of where, you know, one drive, two drive
wasn't a problem, four, five, six drives, and
they started seeing these issues because it was
cumulative. Right? You know, the more drives you
have. So, I'd love to hear any stories
you guys that are listening and watching have
about this and what you did to resolve
it. But, this is this is I mean,
in some cases, you may just need to
get a VFD, like this clean power
drive that eliminates this problem
versus, you know, other ways of dealing with
it. Sure. Oh, so, yeah, that that leads
well into my next kind of couple of
slides here. I mean, harmonics are not new.
Line harmonics voltage distortion isn't something that's new.
I mean, this this has been around for
as long as VFBs has been around. So
people have come up with, you know, ways
to mitigate this. And I've got,
you know, five of those methods listed on
the screen. And we're just gonna kinda very
quickly step through these. But the last one
there is really we're gonna get to okay.
What is in the g two twenty that
makes it unique, and why do I wanna
talk about it? So
again, what and we'll come back to this
summary slide at the end here, but just
okay. Like I said, people have
come up with a handful of different ways
to try and mitigate harmonics. First one is
just, you know, a simple
line reactor. And what you also see is
some manufacturers,
and Siemens has done this too, to some
of our lines. We have DC chokes in
the,
you know, in that DC link section. You
know, it's an inductor and really all that's
doing is imposing,
you know, opposing rather the rate of change
of current flowing through it. So it kinda
takes the top off of those notches if
you you will. Yeah. It's simple,
probably economical.
It's usually applied to each VFD. If you
know something about what impedance you need, there's
there's a selection
you know available in these AC line reactors.
You can select the impedance you want.
But some of the negative things
is they take up more panel space. They
gotta wire it. And
in reality, it only offers kind of a
small improvement.
So people
invented other things. So the next thing I
got here is people came up with,
they call them massive harmonic filters. They're also
called line harmonic filters, you know, LHF, you
see that or harmonic trap filters. And what
these
do is they eliminate or control kind of
those dominant
lower order harmonics. I didn't talk about this
much, but these harmonic currents that are flowing
they're they're much more dominant kind of at
the lower end of the frequency range so
they these harmonic trap filters
work on, you know, those low order harmonics.
And they they can be effective for, you
know, putting in front of a drive. Kind
of what they consist of is a LC
circuit there, maybe with a damping resistor, and
they get tuned to these specific frequencies. So
but again, it's a device
that takes up
panel space. I have to install that separate
from the drive, so I gotta wire it.
And then they don't do a very good
job because they still have, you know, voltage
notching and instability on gen generator operation is
a a is a known problem with these
things. And
okay you're introducing more losses
to the system. So that's passive harmonic filters.
The next thing I've got here is, you
may have this has been pretty common in
the industry. It's called the 18 pulse front
end. And really what this does is uses
takes your incoming three phase power
and really converts it to nine phases with
a, you know, special
transformer,
that creates a phase shift
between
these different,
now nine phases, so I can
now I gotta have this 18 pulse,
diode bridge and you can kinda see that
on the on the slide here too. So
I need, you know, this involves a lot
of equipment. I need this auto transformer,
I need a different rectifier bridge, you know,
a much bigger one really, but it does
do a really good job of yeah. So
I'm not drawing current in big chunks anymore,
I'm drawing
current more often. Right? Because I've
got this, you know, 18 pulse rectifier.
So
it really does a good job of meeting,
you know, there's a standard out there called
IEEE five nineteen
that's referenced, that we'll talk about just a
little bit more here in a bit. And
these also,
work relatively well with the standby generator.
Some of the negative things is, okay, you
know, soon as I introduce that transformer and
more switching,
that reduces my system efficiency.
And really the big one is this takes
a ton of space to not only mount
that transformer, but that, 18 pulse rectifier. I
got a wire between all of that. So
it ends up being a pretty substantial
product cost in terms of component cost and
and floor space cost.
So, but you know has been widely used
in the industry but a lot of metal,
you know copper and iron, being used
in that solution.
Next
IBT bridge
and a DC bus much like the front
end, front two parts of that
AC drive that I showed you. So we've
got kind of a the front end and
a DC bus set in there. And what
this really does is monitors
the current and then really generates
compensation current
in opposite phase to offset harmonics.
So
this can be, you know, effective. The waveform
looks pretty good. It's unaffected by impedance changes
because it's managing the switches.
But yeah, it tends to be you know
more complex,
it's more expensive than passive filters,
and again it becomes
another device to install. Permissioning can be a
bit of a challenge
because you gotta get this tuned to obtain
optimal performance.
Although there are some self tuning ones out
there that, you know, help take that burden
away. But,
yeah, you gotta install another piece of equipment
that takes up think of it as, you
know, two thirds of
another VFD setting out there. Right? I would
think it is also less energy efficient too
because so we all know we have noise
canceling headphones.
They take power to generate a cancel waveform.
Right? So we were already losing power because
of harmonics, and now we're generating another waveform
to cancel out the harmonics. So it just
seems like we're losing more energy
to produce this canceling wave. So it I
mean, I could if this is the option
that works, then you have the space granted,
but
it seems like it's less energy efficient than
maybe a passive filter. Right? But I don't
know. What do you I mean, two thirds
more of the panel space as a as
just the VFD alone. That sounds like a
lot of equipment.
Give you a a fucking waveform. So I
think that's why people like it. But, yeah,
it is definitely something that's more complex.
And
and again,
I think also there's that commissioning aspect. And
another thing is okay. So you get it
set up on a given distribution system and
it's doing great. Okay what happens when I
add a couple of more drives on this
distribution system? It's gonna change
the dynamics and may need to
do some recommissioning. So again it's something that
a plant operator would would need to you
know pay attention to. So all those methods
and and what I'm gonna get to next
is something that's actually in the G220. So
all these previous method methods
you know kind of works to a degree
and each kind of has its maybe
strong points and
and not so strong points.
But what I want to talk about now
is something that's called active front end. And
this is you know, the g two twenty
clean power drive is a version
of this active front end. So active front
ends. So what do we mean by that?
Basically, it's, you know, a sinusoidal
input rectifier. And we are controlling the commutation
or when we're conducting energy. So
with that we can get, you know, if
done right we can have a high dynamic
response. So we can respond to,
changes for instance, you know, voltage dips in
the distribution center
excuse me, distribution system.
And and because of that, then we we
can also kinda get because we're controlling when
we're conducting current,
you know, it's it's near you unity power
factor. So, yeah. These active front ends have
been versions of these drives out there as
well.
What's unique
about the g two twenty is that it's
a two quadrant
active front end.
So power is flowing only in one direction.
So in other words from the supplier line
source, you know, through the drive to the
motor.
These are called clean power. So you hear
the name clean power infeed that's because okay
the, you know, the infeed or line supply
is is clean.
This is known as something,
out in the industry. They're called Vienna bridge
rectifiers.
Vienna bridge rectifiers, something that was invented
in the mid nineties.
And basically,
I I just put up a, you know,
bigger diagram of kinda what's going on here.
There you can kinda see, okay, it is
only two quadrant,
but there's this three level switching process that
really
reduces all these lower ordered harmonics.
So
this provides them a stable controllable.
The advantage is five voltage DC output, so
there's no voltage reduction going on. Makes it
ideal for high power applications like
VFDs.
And again, remember I mentioned earlier in the
conversation here,
electric vehicle chargers. So this is a technology
that's been popularized by some of the people.
Yeah. Making electric vehicle chargers
as well. So and really, yeah. What we're
doing here is
using
on smaller sizes MOSFETs
or on larger sizes, you know, IGBTs here
in the power section.
Mhmm. And then using a very, you know,
part of the sauce here is the control
or of the pulse width modulation
to manage power
inflow
is is really, as short a sentence as
I can come up to describe what's going
on here. With this, because we're only controlling
power in one direction, there's some ability, you
know, we we don't have as many switching
losses.
Again, because we're
only dealing with two quadrants,
it's a compact size, but it is non
regenerative.
And I I just
what I'll do here is I'll put up,
you know, a
four quadrant
comparison.
So there
are active front ends out there that are
four quadrant, which has more of a full
IGBT,
you know, front end to it.
The advantage of that is you do get
power flow. It is regenerative.
You do get power flow in both directions.
But of course now I have higher
losses because I'm switching in both directions
and
and you know, just a little bit less
efficient. So really kind of coming back to
what's in the
the g two twenty
clean power drive is this two quadrant
Vienna Bridge rectifier.
Again because we're only controlling
power in one direction there's some space savings
that that come from that. So yeah and
I'll just add
a two quadrant so that's why this is
targeted at you know, non regenerative
load applications like pumps and fans. Right? And
compressors. Those are not
regen load applications.
If you need something, you know, four quadrant
that would be, you know, like think of
a hoisting application or something like that. Maybe
large centrifuges or something like that that has
a lot of mass that's been accelerated up
and yet can capture some region on the
D cell. But that's kind of,
what's
in the g two twenty clean power drive.
So, Sean, I'll just kinda stop there and
the and by the way, the waveform
is fantastic. Just dialed that in there. So
any thoughts or questions or what's on your
what's on your mind there? Yeah. No. That's
important to know. So, you know, you got
the two quadrant
version in the Clean Power g two twenty.
And the important thing here is you're gonna
get beautiful. You're gonna get beautiful elimination of
harmonics. You're gonna have a beautiful waveform.
But when you make this choice, you're also
opting out of, regen, like you said, like
a hoist or a large inertia load.
There'll be no regenning,
which in some cases, you'd be choosing a
different VFD. That's just a different application. Right?
Exactly. But I think most VFD applications, at
least the ones I've seen over the years,
do not have any regen.
Right? They're your standard purpose,
even your high performance VFDs are not doing
regen
or anything any any type of regeneration capabilities.
So I think for most applications, that's not
gonna be an issue, but it's important to
point out. What do you think? In the
you know, some people we've asked questions about,
why didn't you just make it four quadrant?
Well, let me ask you, Sean. What do
you think's less expensive to make? A a
two quadrant or four quadrant version? I got
a feeling the four quadrant may be twice
as much.
Yeah. Well, at least that part of it.
Right? The front end. And when do you
think would, you know, take up more handle
space at two quadrant or four quadrant? Yeah.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, it's it's
a very targeted,
again, targeted at those,
applications that are non region load applications, which
Yeah. I'll I'll submit that's at least 80%
of them, you know, what's out there. So
if so, again, this
really just to emphasize,
it's it's a Vienna bridge rectifier. So, you
know, some uniqueness there.
But then really,
also the software side of it, you know,
building
the,
algorithm
to manage that power flow and assure
efficient operation is what's been done in the
g two twenty drive. And
yeah. With regards to nice looking waveforms, it's
a lights out, you know, the best looking
waveform out there. And matter of fact, I've
got one more slide here that
shows just, you know, development team took one
of our g two twenty products,
you know. So this is what's shown over
on the
left side here is just your standard our,
you know, waveform. You can see kind of
the double humped waveform there.
If you put a passive harmonic filter in
front of the g two twenty, you know,
waveform starts to look pretty good. But now
if you just use a clean power drive,
you get a very nice looking waveform.
All that
worrying about
what the effect of harmonics how they're generated
you don't have
to think about that anymore because right at
the input terminals
of the drive you know, we're giving you
very very low
turn harmonic distortion.
So and and also that near unity power
factor.
So that's really the advantages of the clean
power drive.
Well, and I you know, just for the
audio audience, I mean, we're looking at the
standard g two twenty, right, your standard drive.
You're looking at a total harmonic distortion of,
let's say, 33.
Well, you put that passive harmonic filter on,
that's standard drive. Now we're down to around
4%. Right?
But if you have a lot of those
drives, that may not be enough. Right? So
with the clean power g two twenty, we're
down to under 2%, 1.9
total harmonic distortion.
And you see that I know you guys
listening can't see it, but you can see
that in the waveforms.
All the viewers who are watching can see
the waveforms definitely
the improvement as you go through each of
these options.
And, again, you'll know if you need clean
power. Right? I'm
fairly sure that, you you know, if you
don't need clean power, you don't need it.
Right? But if you need it Right. And
and this is something that I think we'll
see more and more
because quite honestly, I mean, power fact, we
all know how that affects your utility bill
and
how our company thinks about that. And so
we can accept more stringent controls over time
as, yes, the systems become more advanced. You
know, you're gonna get dinged if you have
really bad power, you know, the quality of
the power. If you're causing problems down, you
know, for the rest of the block or
for the rest of the, business park, they're
gonna start tracking that. So let me turn
it back to you, Evan. Yep. We're kind
of to the end. I've got a couple
of slides just to summarize what we've talked
about here.
You know, the the g two twenty is,
a new drive for us. It's our next
generation SINAMICS product.
And really this drive was designed and built
on four pillars of
digitalization.
So in the form of you know, having
a digital twin capability to help engineers shorten
design and engineering efforts when sizing a drive
system, and then
tools to optimize operation once it's up and
running. You can see another pillar of
secure, meaning
security,
with regards to cybersecurity
and and safety that protects people from machines
and protects machines from people as well and
other sinister actors. And ease of use, you
know, next generation product starting with a clean
sheet of paper. Okay. Some things were done
with regards to selection, configuring,
commissioning,
training,
things like that with making the product as
easy to use as possible.
And then this fourth pillar of being sustainable,
you know optimizing
manufacturing
resources and materials used, even operational efficiency during
the life of the product and then even
considering you know the end of the product
life cycle. So all of those things designed
into
the Sinamics
G220 and then if we look again specifically
at
the advantages of the clean power drive, you
know that nice
clean
low low total distortion
that complies with the harmonic standards, near unity
power factor, and again, in that space saving
design. And just to kinda give you an
idea, I've I've been telling you it's small,
and I think I maybe let the cat
out of the bag at the beginning of
the,
presentation as well. Yeah. Here's here's kind of
a table that shows dimensions, and there's that
200 horsepower drive that I referenced.
So,
yeah, this this technology,
you know, it's not like buy the drive
and buy buy something else to add on
to it. It's all in one package. And,
yeah, that that 200 horsepower drive,
you know, 31 inches tall, less than 12
inches wide, and about 14 inches deep. That's
a 200 horsepower clean power drive that would
yeah. You wouldn't have to think about all
this harmonic stuff. And I'm not gonna put
up a chart that shows competitor a, b,
and c and and our product next to
it. But you can
take that table and go
find go look at other people's solutions and
you'll see
yeah. It's it's a very compact device. So
that's kind of the point of that slide
there, Sean. And, yeah, really my last slide
then just kind of I have drawn heavily
from
a white paper that my counterpart, Nikun Shah,
wrote.
So we'll give you a link to go
download that, white paper.
That discusses a little bit more. I've kinda
mentioned on and off, I triple e five
nineteen. That is by far the prevalent standard
in this country for,
yeah, describing what harmonics are, different medication techniques.
And then, you know, there's tables in there.
It's like, okay, if you're being
called to meet specification at triple eight five
nineteen, you know, here are the harmonic current
distortion levels and voltage distortion levels that that
you need to
meet. So that's all laid out in that
white paper. Yeah. And then we'll give you
a a link to
our website,
to the g two twenty catalog.
I have another very useful feature shown that
I'll give you a link to is the
seamless product selector where you can go and,
you know put in a part you know
very quickly pick a part number and then
get to some you know CAD models of
it.
And then I've mentioned that energy savings calculator
at all. So Sean that's kind of what
I had for today. I hope that was
interesting to you
and, more importantly, interesting to your audience.
Yeah. And I just wanna remind the audience
that we had you on to talk about
the g two twenty a while back. We
also had Jackie on that go through commissioning
the one twenty and the two twenty. So
if you're kinda curious, how do you do
that in TIA portal? Because I've never done
that before. So Jackie came on, and she
walked us through that for both of these
two models. We also have received some samples
from Siemens.
So we will be, trying those out them
ourselves here in the
in the studio. Don't know. Don't have a
date on that. We're a little backed up
here. But, definitely, they're right in front of
me every day, so I don't forget about
them. So we'll be doing that as well.
And, then we'll make those available to our
in person students who come to the school
as well as we'll add those as lessons
to the online course over at the automation
school. But so lots of stuff. We've had
a lot of coverage. If you have any
questions, check out this white paper.
I'm sure we just touched the surface of
what's in there. And, of course, Ivan and
all his colleagues at Siemens would love to
hear from you. And, Ivan, let me, pass
it back to you for the final word.
Yeah. Just thank you so much for having
me on, Sean. Well, I hope you enjoyed
that episode. I wanna thank Ivan for coming
on the show and giving us that very
technical presentation, which I totally enjoyed. I hope
you guys did too. Also wanna thank Siemens
for sponsoring this episode because you guys know
I love to really stem completely ad free
and available to the entire public.
So with that said, I also wanna thank
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And with the exception of Thanksgiving week, we
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So I'm excited about that. If you know
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and so, we'd love to have them on
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this coming year of 2026.
So with that said, I just wanna wish
you all
good health and happiness.
And until next time, my friends,
peace.