Motors rated above 375 kW currently use about 10,4% of global electricity, a share expected to double by 2040. Analysis of over 1.000 ABB large synchronous motors and generators delivered worldwide from ABB’s Västerås manufacturing facility in Sweden between 2015 and 2025 shows a persistent efficiency gap between standard specifications and what ABB’s Top Industrial Efficiency (TIE) approach can achieve using proven technology. This roughly 0.2% gap leads to $9,5 – 12 billion in unnecessary electricity costs and 60 – 75 million tons of avoidable CO₂ over a 25-year lifetime, despite payback periods of months to three years.
As energy demand grows, driven by AI and data centers, industrial efficiency is becoming critical. The TIE initiative is ABB’s contractual commitment to deliver large synchronous motors and generators with the highest possible energy efficiency, without compromising reliability or specification compliance. Open to OEMs, EPCs and end users, it enables solutions optimized for lifecycle performance rather than upfront cost.
TIE systems of large synchronous motors and generators with the highest possible energy efficiency reach about 98,7 – 98,8% efficiency versus 98,5% standard, with higher gains possible in some applications. Applying even the 0,2% improvement globally could save 4 – 6 TWh annually (powering up to 1 million households) and 100 – 150 TWh over 25 years, cutting emissions by 60 – 75 million tons, equivalent to removing 13 - 16 million cars from the road. Gains of 1 to 1,5 percentage points can be achieved in in some applications, particularly replacing induction-based systems.
To turn potential into impact, the report sets out a clear set of actions to accelerate adoption. It calls on industry to move beyond upfront cost and embed energy efficiency into procurement decisions, including specifying minimum performance levels and requesting optimized designs.
The full report is available at the ABB website here.
IEN Europe: You started the “Top Industrial Efficiency” Program for Large Motors and Generators. How big is the actual gap and what can be gained by customers choosing to go that way?
David Bjerhag: Launching the program the idea behind “Top Industrial Efficiency” (TIE) was not to make it ABB specific, but to make it kind of open for everyone. Because large motors and generators do have an impact. Based on the data about the units we delivered from our Västerås plant between 2015 and 2025 we found that if they had been specified under TIE, 11 terawatt hours could have been saved. And these motors are already efficient.
But what I wanted to do is actually to expand it further to make TIE accessible for other manufacturers of generators and motors, but also for turbines or compressors.
So I've been traveling around a lot to customers, trying to introduce this option to them. To change the system users and potential customers need to know what the best performance of a product can be and what they should ask for, be it electric motors, generators, turbines or compressors.
IEN Europe: But how big is the effect customers can have? How much efficiency can they gain? The cost and time you need to achieve a return is always interesting if you're thinking about investments?
David Bjerhag: I mean, if we simplify it, I would say the main step, for example in a compressor application, would be to go from a combustion driven application - take a gas turbine driven compressor - to electric. So, there you go from about 35% efficiency on a gas turbine to an electric motor that would have at least 97 or 98%, right?
That's the big step when you go electric and that's why it is done. But if we look at the big compressors, most of them are actually now electric driven.
If you talk about an efficiency increasing from 35% to 98%, then we're talking about a lot of money. And you also have less maintenance on an electric motor compared to a gas turbine, etc. The savings can simply be calculated taking the number of megawatts, 8,000 hours a year, 25 years, and then making 60% efficiency gain. So that's very, very fast payback.
But even if you have a synchronous motor already and then think about upgrading for “Top Industrial Efficiency” with more premium thin materials, more copper, et cetera, the payback is somewhere half a year to three years in all the cases we looked at.
And in addition, you get other advantages as the cooling system gets smaller and the piping gets less and also the engineering is reduced.
So positive effects from different sides are coming together.
IEN Europe: What are the typical industries that can benefit from your offering the most?
David Bjerhag: If you take power generation, there are a lot of opportunities. The generators typically produce power 24-7, and there is quite a big market for generator.
Also in data centers, their main focus is on speed currently and if they go for higher efficiency, that will achieve quite big savings.
Another one is of course the oil and gas sector with LNG. So, power followed by oil and gas would be the main two markets as I see it, just because of size of the market, but also that the opportunity for higher efficiency is bigger there currently.
IEN Europe: Can you tell us in general terms how you achieve the efficiency gain in your TIE products and for your customers?
Gunnar Porsby: We work with a lot of calculation tools and software, purchased and developed in-house helping us to design the machines right. And depending on the customer’s priority you can go in different directions of optimization, e.g. cost optimization to create the most cost-effective machine possible to meet the defined requirements. Then we also have customers like air separation industry that want high efficiency. So, we know how to design for efficiency as well.
To optimize for efficiency, we look at the electrical steel in the stator having a higher grade. We look on how much copper we have in the winding.
So, with a bit of premium thinner or higher qualitative materials, we can get upsides on efficiency. Of course, you need also to design for it, but those are the cost drivers and efficiency drivers.
The good thing as electrical designer for customized machines is, you do this in parallel. Basically, you have all the specifications in front of you and make the nominal base design as required. Then it's very easy to adopt an alternative high efficiency solution that meets all customer requirements. Doing this simultaneously basically in our engineering tools that this gives a very clear way for decision making and customizing to the needs and expectations of customers.
IEN Europe: When somebody asks you about end-of-life replacement versus instant replacement and recycling of old equipment. What is your answer from an efficiency point of view?
David Bjerhag: Yes, we actually did a very serious work on this. We kind of knew the answer, but we had PhD students, both from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and from Linköping University. Doing studies on good practice in efficiency. Is it to extend lifetime or optimize efficiency? When should you replace? So, there are independent studies now done by university that clearly show that efficiency kind of trumps everything.
If you lose on efficiency, you should redo, replace the unit very fast. It's not worthwhile keeping a unit longer because that's also a LCI perspective, right? So, there are university-based studies on that, because we wanted to have this clarified.
IEN Europe: Thank you for these insights!
