State of the art solutions
Our portfolio is built to address the evolving needs and challenges of the hydropower industry. We believe in pushing boundaries and constantly move the limits of what's possible.
The price of harmful forces
Hydropower generators face a wide range of challenges from mechanical, magnetic, and hydraulic reasons, leading to:
- Limited operational flexibility due to restrictions
- Increased repair costs and maintenance needs
- Unreliability from unplanned outages
- Accelerated wear and depreciation, shorten the asset life and speeding-up costly refurbishments.
The Active Magnetic Balancing® system eliminates the root causes of these impacts!
How Active Magnetic Balancing® works?
The Active Magnetic Balancing® system is a combined software and hardware solution that serves as add-on to new and in-use machines. The system uses rotor poles as controllable electromagnets to generate counteracting force vectors that compensates for harmful forces.
A control cabinet, placed next to the generator, process real-time data from magnetic flux density sensors installed in the stator wall of the airgap. With the combination of power electronics and our unique software, compensating currents to create force vectors are distributed to the rotor through additional sliprings and conductors strategically installed.
The Value Proposition
The Active Magnetic Balancing® System offers true value throughout the entire lifecycle of a synchronous generator or motor. By neutralizing the same forces that much of conventional design aims to counteract, the mechanical tolerances can be relaxed and the design be made more cost-effective and substantially less carbon-intensive.
The main benefits of the system derives from drastically reduced needs for unplanned maintenance and repairs and its related downtime. It’s further common for Active Magnetic Balancing® to help lift production restrictions that were imposed on a machine due to issues with vibrations or uneven heat distribution. Last but not least, the system can extend the service life of mentioned equipment by an estimated 20%. The additional +10 years that this means for e.g. a hydropower generator dramatically changes the view of asset management, where the renewal of an aging fleet on mature market represents a financial burden that can now be postponed and spread out over time.