The about-us section is kept brief because we want you to discover what we can do for you by providing our independent advice on medium-voltage drives. It is all about answering your question: “What is in it for me?”

• What can we do for you?
• When can you use our assistance?
• Straight to the key takeaways?
• Ready for more concise advice, contact us for a free video call.

What can we do for you?

• Do you have critical machinery that affects your production process?
• Are you looking to match your power drive system to your process for maximum uptime?
• Are you experiencing information overload and time constraints?
• Are you struggling to get immediate, independent, practical advice on a specific phase of your medium-voltage power drive (MV VFD) system’s lifecycle?
• Are you looking to ensure that your input isolation transformer, medium-voltage VFD drive, and motor are matched for the application in terms of reliability, efficiency, safety, quality, and performance?

With more than 25 years of drive application experience and a structured approach to project management, we can provide independent advice to ensure your critical machines are driven reliably, efficiently, and safely.

We learned from the best, from field service for Reliance Electric in the nineties to project engineering at Schneider Electric in the early 2000s, Rockwell Automation, and last but not least, project management and drive technologies at Siemens Large Drives applications.

In which phase of the lifecycle are you looking for independent advice?

We can assist you throughout the complete lifecycle of your medium-voltage power drive system (MV VFD) for your critical machine. That is independent advice from initial planning to ongoing operation:

• Project Inception & Planning Phase
• Procurement and Design Phase
• Testing and Commissioning Phase
• Operational Phase

Project Inception & Planning Phase:

⊕ Assess your stakeholders’ needs for critical machinery powered by the VFD:

• • • What should you accomplish?
    • Why is it necessary?
    • How do you verify that the system requires it?

⊕ Establish requirements for the Power Drive System (PDS):

• • • Translate stakeholders’ needs into high-level functional requirements.
    • Refine these into precise, concise, and unambiguous requirements that you can validate and trace back to the power drive system requirements.
    • Avoid, where possible, specifying how the implementation should be done.

⊕ Define the project scope:

• • • The limits of the scope of supply for the power drive system.
    • The responsibilities and services that comprise the supply.
    • The installation, start-up, and maintenance.

⊕ Establish requirements for the Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT) plan:

• • • Define testing procedures (test plan) for components before shipment.

⊕ Define requirements for Site Acceptance Tests (SAT):

• • • Prepare testing procedures to verify equipment performance after on-site installation.

⊕ Organize pre-bid meetings:

• • • Initial meetings for vendors and contractors involved in the PDS project.

Procurement and Design Phase:

⊕ Select and evaluate preferred vendors for transformers, inverters, and motors based on factors like:

• • • Reliability and service history with references of successful power drive systems similar to your application.
    • Initial equipment cost, including installation, may be managed through an Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) company.
    • Efficiency of the power drive system within the operational speed range.
    • Conformance to specifications.
    • Projected maintenance costs include:
      • A nearby robust service and support network.
      • 24/7 remote support for monitoring, diagnostics, and troubleshooting.
      • Availability of spare parts.

⊕ Prepare bid invitations.

• • • Send invitations to manufacturers or EPCs for the entire power drive system or its components, such as the transformer, inverter, and motor.

⊕ Review offers, identify deviations, and clarify outstanding issues:

• • • Compare supplier bids with the project plan to identify potential deviations.
    • Resolve open questions and deviations with suppliers regarding the power drive system (PDS).

⊕ Evaluate the proposed medium voltage drive topology:

• • • Is the proposed medium-voltage drive configuration suitable for your application in terms of reliability, efficiency, safety, quality, and performance?
      • Consider whether it is a brownfield or greenfield project and the associated environmental factors.
      • Evaluate whether the footprint and layout flexibility of the power drive system are important.
      • Determine whether a motor-friendly topology is necessary.
      • Assess whether high dynamic control is required.
      • Decide whether uni- or bidirectional power flow is needed.
      • Identify which harmonic mitigation strategies should be implemented.
      • Analyze how the power factor evolves as a function of the load.
      • Estimate expected torque pulsations.
      • Check for redundancy in the power circuit to enhance reliability.
      • Examine how the system interacts with supply voltage conditions, such as background voltage distortion and systemic voltage imbalance.
      • Review restrictions on cable types and lengths for the motor cable.
      • Consider how cooling requirements are managed.
      • ….

⊕ Dimension correctly for environmental factors.

• • • Consider factors such as ambient temperature, altitude, hazards, dust, and condensation.

Testing and Commissioning Phase:

⊕ Assist in the validation of witnessed and non-witnessed FATs:

• • • Assist FATs in verifying that the equipment meets performance criteria.

⊕ Manage on-site validation of SATs:

• • • Manage final on-site testing to ensure the power drive system operates correctly and safely in its final environment and complies with SAT requirements.

⊕ Final review of all test results:

• • • Verify that all results meet requirements and that the PDS system is ready for operation.

Operational Phase:

⊕ Critical operation of machinery:

• • • Ensuring the selected and implemented system drives the critical machinery reliably, efficiently, and safely.
    • Harmonics evaluation of the actual installation.

⊕ Advice to establish a maintenance plan to ensure:

• • • A sustained high level of performance and availability of your VFD system.
    • Restoration of lost redundancy, which is critical for maintaining high availability.
    • Improvement of the total cost of ownership.

Key takeaway:

We can provide you with the right questions to ask your manufacturer candidates and solution providers at every stage of your medium-voltage power drive system’s lifecycle. Even more important is evaluating their responses. We support your decision-making process by providing expert, unbiased consulting and assistance for low- and medium-voltage AC and DC drives.

About Us: Pro-Etic is a privately owned company based in Belgium that specializes in project management services for the industrial sector. We focus on vendor-neutral consulting for medium-voltage drive applications throughout every phase of your mission-critical machine’s lifecycle. You can find our data in the footer of every page on our website, which also contains our terms and conditions, privacy statement, and cookie policy.