Researchers say escalator energy use poses opportunity

European elevators put in standby mode consume anywhere between 4.2% and 90.3% of their overall consumption and in escalators this percentage ranges from 1.3% to 54.3%. Researchers from ISR-University of Coimbra in  Portugal say such figures point to an opportunity to save a lot of energy through careful design and well-thought-out operational strategies.

Aníbal de Almeida, Carlos Patrão, Fernando Ferreira, and João Fong studied elevators and escalators deployed in Europe. They found a lot of misinformation among building owners when it came to configuring these systems to save energy. Speaking at the International Conference on Energy Efficiency in Motor Driven Systems last year in France, they pointed out there are certain components or systems in elevators and escalators that, after each travel, can be totally or partially switched off, such as: car lighting, car fans, call buttons, displays, etc. But a lot of times, this never happens. The way the control system is managed also directly affects the energy consumption of the drive. For example, the correct choice of travel speed, acceleration and jerk can be optimized for both adequate servicing and energy efficiency.

Their paper can be read here:

http://www1.cetim.fr/eemods09/pages/programme/074-Patrao-final.pdf