20 April 2011
IEA Paper Proposes Work Plan for Improving Efficiency of Electric Motor-Driven Systems
story highlights

The paper, titled “Walking the Torque: Proposed Work Plan for Energy-Efficiency Policy Opportunities for Electric Motor-Driven Systems," presents a proposal to improve the energy efficiency of Electric Motor-driven Systems by 10% to 15% by 2030 (equivalent to reducing global electricity consumption by 5%).

March 2011: Based on the realization that Electric Motor-driven Systems (EMDS) account for over 40% of global energy consumption, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has published a new information paper titled “Walking the Torque: Proposed Work Plan for Energy-Efficiency Policy Opportunities for Electric Motor-Driven Systems.”

The paper presents a proposal to improve the energy efficiency of EMDS by 10% to 15% by 2030 (equivalent to reducing global electricity consumption by 5%), but underlines that this would only be possible through global cooperation. The paper contains sections on: energy usage in EMDS; barriers to the uptake of more efficient EMDS; optimizing EMDS; driving factors for EMDS policy development; rationale for a globally coordinated policy framework; and the proposed work plan. The overarching conclusion of the paper is that to achieve these efficiency improvements, a globally-coordinated system of national efforts must be devised to enable the economies of scale necessary to shift production to more efficient motors.

The proposed work plan organizes work on various technologies into four levels of priority. Variable speed devices, fans, pumps, and induction motors are considered the most urgent technologies to address. The report presents proposed actions by the IEA and indicative timing for the beginning of work on these issues. [Executive Summary] [Publication: Walking the Torque: Proposed Work Plan for Energy-Efficiency Policy Opportunities for Electric Motor-Driven Systems]