The new era of venti­lation tech­nology

Get the most out of your air condi­tioning or refrig­er­a­tion system in terms of effi­ciency and oper­a­tional reli­a­bility: with Digital Services from ebm-papst.

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Mr. Bastian, ebm-papst now offers digital services for fans. Why is that?

In the past 20 years, we have greatly improved fan tech­nology in terms of energy consump­tion and effi­ciency. We’ve now come to a point where we can achieve greater effi­ciency gains with soft­ware than with hard­ware. Signif­i­cantly greater gains, in fact.

What sort of gains are we talking about?

Energy savings of 15 to 20 percent, for example. The imple­men­ta­tion of digital features is often amor­tized after less than one year, two years at most. Added to this, of course, is the fact that lower energy consump­tion reduces the carbon foot­print, some­thing that is impor­tant to many of our customers.

The imple­men­ta­tion of digital features is often amor­tized after less than one year, two years at most.

Stefan Bastian, Managing Director of ebm-papst neo

That sounds great. How does it work?

The prereq­ui­site is that your fan is an EC fan with a Modbus inter­face. We can then include it in status moni­toring in our epCloud — even if it is not one of our fans. The system records data such as output, vibra­tion, energy consump­tion and more. The data is then analyzed by the cloud. On this basis, we can make recom­men­da­tions for demand-led oper­a­tion or remedy faults. If the customer wants, the system can control certain fan values auto­mat­i­cally. A collat­eral benefit is that we can use the resulting wealth of data in the cloud to train an AI system that will deliver further advan­tages in the future.

What sort of recom­men­da­tions are made for demand-led ­oper­a­tions?

The recom­men­da­tions relate to various aspects such as increasing oper­a­tional effi­ciency, the inter­ac­tion of several fans or the condi­tion of the fan. For example, we suggest adjusting the fan speed, checking the filter for soiling or changing the output distri­b­u­tion within a fan wall.

What are the advan­tages other than requiring less energy?

Digital services enable customers to main­tain their fans effi­ciently, as and when it is neces­sary. The corre­sponding data helps them achieve this, ensuring oper­a­tional reli­a­bility and a longer service life.

How can customers access digital services?

They should simply contact us to be among the first to benefit from our digital services. Starting next year, we will be rolling the services out as solu­tions, which will make things even easier.