Frequency converter manufacturers

Currently, there is a rapid change in the principles of construction, design and hardware components used by electric drives in various industries, transportation, other public production, utilities.

In the power range from hundreds of watts to hundreds of kW, the Russian market offers the widest range frequency converters for a regulated AC drive based on fully controlled power transistor switches at an average price of 100-450 euros / kW. In this case, the control object can be the simplest, most reliable and cheapest asynchronous motor.

In many cases, the modernization is carried out by replacing unregulated and variable electric drives of a different type with asynchronous variable frequency electric drives with higher technical and economic indicators.

A brief overview of the current state of the frequency converter market shows a huge number of proposals promoted by hundreds of both leading and lesser-known foreign and domestic companies.All well-known global manufacturers are now represented on the Russian market. As for the average prices of products, among the leaders they are distinguished by capacity ranges as follows:

• in the area of ​​low power (up to 2.2 kW) — 450-650 € / kW;

• in the area of ​​medium power (up to 50 kW) — 150-450 € / kW;

• in the area of ​​high power (over 50 kW) — 90-150 € / kW.

Average prices refer to low voltage versions. The high voltage options for 3.3, 6, 10 kV etc. are still much more expensive.

Among the foreign manufacturers, the following large companies should be mentioned:

— world leaders setting quality criteria in the production of frequency converters. These include ABB, Allen Bradley, Danfoss, Mitsubishi Electric, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Yaskawa;

Frequency converters from ABB

Danfoss frequency converters

Frequency inverter Mitsubishi Electric

— a more modest niche is occupied by companies such as Control Techniques, Emotron, Lenze, etc. Their products are practically not inferior in quality to the leaders (at prices 10-15% lower than those indicated);

Frequency converter from Lenze

— manufacturers quickly breaking into the domestic market of frequency converters with sufficiently high-quality and reliable products: Alstom, Ansaldo, Baumuller, Delta Electronics, ESTEL, Fuji, General Electric, Hitachi, Honeywell, KEB, LG, Robicon, SEW , Toshiba, Vacon (prices are 20-25% lower than those indicated).

Frequency converters from Hitachi

Unfortunately, there are very few domestic frequency converters on the Russian market for obvious reasons. And although the number of domestic manufacturers is not so small, their share of the total background is small.

The main local manufacturers of frequency converters at the moment are:

• Vesper-Automatics, Moscow;

• Institute of Biological Instruments RAS (IBP RAS), Pushchino, Moscow region;

• «IRZ» (Izhevsk Radio Plant), Izhevsk;

• STC «Drive Technics», Moscow;

• NPP "Sapphir", Moscow; TomZEL, Tomsk;

• corporation «Triol-SPb», St. Petersburg (in addition, there is Ukrainian «Triol», Kharkiv in the near abroad);

• «ERASIB», Novosibirsk;

• JSC "Electrovipriyatel", Saransk;

• JSC "Electroprivod", Moscow;

• "Electrotex", Oril;

• CHEAZ (Cheboksary Plant for Electrical Appliances), Cheboksary and others (prices of local manufacturers are about 30-35% lower than their western counterparts).

There are also several joint ventures for the production of frequency converters (for example, Ansaldo-VEI; Gamem, Moscow; VEMZ-Hitachi, Vladimir; YaEMZ-Control Techniques, Yaroslavl). Such enterprises are mainly engaged in the assembly of "screwdrivers" of Western models, and in some cases they use domestic electronic components together with sufficiently high-quality and reliable asynchronous machines of Russian production.