• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Bearing Tips

Ball Bearings, Roller Bearings, Thrust Bearings, Tapered Bearings

  • Bearing Basics
  • Ball Bearings
  • Roller Bearings
  • Thrust Bearings
    • Ball Thrust
    • Roller Thrust
    • Tapered Roller Bearings
  • Lubrication
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Suppliers
You are here: Home / Featured / Bearing materials made with solar energy

Bearing materials made with solar energy

March 3, 2021 By Mike Santora

vesconite-bearings-overhead-shot
Vesconite Bearings has already installed the first phase of its solar project, comprising 14 strings of 18 x 350 W Canadian solar panels and a 66 kW Schneider Electric inverter.

Polymer bearing material producer Vesconite Bearings intends to take advantage of South Africa’s high levels of solar radiation to power some of its most power-hungry processes.

The company has already installed the first phase of its solar project, comprising 14 strings of 18 x 350 W Canadian solar panels and a 66 kW Schneider Electric inverter.

The system produces 65 kWh at peak, with the inverter supplying 60 kW to the factory’s Extrusion Department, which makes its proprietary Vesconite and Vesconite Hilube wear-resistant self-lubricating hollow bars and rods.

As such, three-quarter of the department’s electricity needs of 80kW/h, are provided for during peak sunlight hours, with a smaller proportion of the department’s electricity needs being catered for from dawn and after 12 noon.

“This is a 60 kW on-demand grid-tied system,” explains Extrusion Head Marius Du Plooy.

“This means that the inverter is synchronized with the municipality’s supply and we use what we produce during the daytime,” he notes.

Unfortunately, the municipality in which Vesconite Bearings is located does not allow energy producers to sell excess power back to it.

It is not yet cost-effective to use storage batteries, so the full energy-production-capacity of the solar system is not harnessed and the company is investigating how to expand the usage of the system.

Vesconite’s CEO, Dr. Jean-Patrick Leger, is pleased that the company has been able to harness the power of the sun for its extrusion processes and will soon have “Produced by Solar Power” stickers printed for the company’s extrusions produced during the “solar shift”.

Extruders tend to be power-intensive since energy is needed for the barrel heaters that melt the polymers; the screw drives that propel the polymer material through the extruders; and the digital control systems.

However, the location of the company in sunny South Africa, with more than 2,500 hours of sunshine a year and solar-radiation levels of between 4.5 and 6.5 kWh/m2 per day is a clear benefit.

“This is one thing that small businesses can do to save money, make themselves less reliant on State-provided electricity, and reduce their impact on the environment,” says Leger.

Vesconite Bearings
www.vesconite.com

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: vesconitebearings

Primary Sidebar

Search

RSS Featured White Papers

  • Crossed Roller Bearings Offer Many Benefits for Robotic Systems
  • Miniature Linear Bearings Offer Maximum Performance
  • Robotics and DualVee® Go Hand in Hand

Follow Mike on Twitter

Tweets by @BearingTips

Footer

Bearing Tips

Design World Network

Design World Online
The Robot Report
Coupling Tips
Motion Control Tips
Linear Motion Tips
Fastener Engineering

Bearing Tips

Subscribe to our newsletter
Advertise with us
Contact us
About us

Follow us on TwitterAdd us on FacebookAdd us on LinkedIn Add us on YouTube Add us on Instagram

Copyright © 2022 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy