The future is DC

Sustainability, supply security, energy and cost efficiency are only some of the reasons for increasing the use of DC systems in manufacturing systems. The following diagram is an overview of such a system.

With DC networks, you can directly and efficiently feed electrical energy from regenerative sources into your own network. This is a great advantage, especially in terms of CO₂-neutral production. Reducing conversion losses and using braking energy in motors, tail lifts, or robots increases energy efficiency and reduces costs significantly.

DC systems enable facilitated integration of electro-chemical accumulators such as batteries or capacitors. These accumulators provide increased supply security when short power losses and mains failures occur and they reduce the power consumption and installation effort of production systems through “Peak shaving”. This also reduces investment and network connection costs. It does not require an additional conductor, which reduces the cross section of the remaining cables.

More and more DC-based pilot systems are being planned, built, tested and approved. Despite all the benefits of this technology, there are also challenges. Especially the high voltages of 650 V to 800 V are quite challenging for switching and protection concepts. Unlike AC networks, there is no natural zero crossing of the flowing currents, which means that switching arcs do not extinguish themselves.

With over 75 years of experience in switchgear engineering, we can help solve these challenges with our combined expertise. Today, there are both electromechanical and electronic concepts for protecting, switching and monitoring loads in industrial DC networks.