As Taiwan enters the "dog days of summer," its electricity consumption has repeatedly hit new highs, and the importance of energy conservation and green energy has become ever more prominent. MEAN WELL, the world's leading brand of standard power supplies, has long been committed to improving product performance to assist all sectors in efforts of energy conservation and carbon reduction; especially in recent years, various industries have faced the impact of ESG, and the demand for energy-conserving and green energy products is even more intense. MEAN WELL's diversified products, through flexible combination of 3+N System Solutions, can help customers quickly achieve energy-conservation goals.
"3" here refers to Rack Power, Modular Power and System Power and "N" represents the infinite possibilities of MEAN WELL's product combination and flexibility. Under the 3+N System Solutions framework, MEAN WELL's new generation of industrial-grade chargers and inverters, bidirectional power supplies, and energy-saving burn-in system solutions have become energy-saving tools for all fields.
MEAN WELL 3+N system solutions
Eris Wu, Chief Technical Service Officer at MEAN WELL: "If an enterprise wants to reduce electricity bills while taking into account power stability and net-zero carbon emissions, peak-shaving and valley-filling of the energy storage system and bidirectional power conversion can store energy during off-peak hours and discharge during peak hours, so as to maximally allow for no distinct peaks or lows. Only by reducing stress on the power system can further save electricity costs, save energy, and reduce carbon." When electricity bills are about to rise, companies must step up and take countermeasures.
Redundant, Portable Power Products are Becoming Readily Available
MEAN WELL's new generation of industrial-grade chargers and inverters have complete specifications, ranging from low to high wattage, thus fully meeting requirements for battery charging, green energy storage, power backup, mobile device charging, mobile power supply, and stationary energy storage.
Generally speaking, in places where there is no alternating current, electricity mostly relies on fuel generators to generate alternating current to meet demand. However, generators are not only noisy and polluting, they are also not in line with environmental protection; also, DC-AC inverters play an important role in green energy applications. In response to such needs, MEAN WELL's NTS/NTU series of inverters and NPB series of chargers are paired with customer battery systems, which can solve power supply problems in various places without AC power, and can also be used as battery-based UPS backup power sources.
"As long as customers select products from MEAN WELL's website according to charging current and load required for the application; and with the support of the global technical service team, they can quickly find the system solutions that they need," said Tony Hsieh, Section Manager of MEAN WELL's Technical Service Center.
MEAN WELL continues to develop miniaturized products and increase the freedom of product installation to expand the scope of application further. For example, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals have primarily adopted many mobile disinfection lights; MEAN WELL's miniaturized products can be directly integrated with the main body of these mobile systems to provide mobile charging functions and improve the mobility of devices. Similarly, medical carts, floor scrubbing robots, and other devices can also benefit from the convenience of MEAN WELL power supplies. In addition, through the combination of software, applications such as burners can quickly set voltage and current, making them more convenient.
Bidirectional Power Supplies Convert + Recycle Power
MEAN WELL bidirectional power supplies are mainly used in battery R&D and testing. In recent years, with the development of green energy and sustainable development, battery consumption has grown rapidly. Thus, a good battery can help save energy and reduce carbon. From battery manufacture to shipment, charging and discharging processes of the battery must be repeated to maintain the level of function and performance of the battery.
In the past, a charger and an inverter had to be used separately to perform charging and discharging. The heat energy generated by the discharge through resistance would dissipate into the air, causing the temperature of the working environment to rise. As the name suggests, MEAN WELL's bidirectional power supply combines those two devices—a charger and an inverter. In addition to charging the DC battery through AC, it can discharge seamlessly in the reverse direction within 1ms. The battery or the load terminal recovers the DC energy and is then converted into AC power, which is directly fed to the mains grid.
"In this way, the 1ms seamless switching function can graph the complete charge and discharge curve. The cost of charging and discharging equipment can be reduced, space can be reduced, and the maintenance work can be simplified as well. Furthermore, heat dissipation is greatly reduced, meaning the temperature rise of the working environment will be limited and the amount of air-conditioning can be reduced, all resulting in lower power consumption," said Simon Kuo, Product Manager of the Product Strategy Center.
MEAN WELL's BIC-2200 series of Bidirectional Power Supplies has been top-rated since its launch. In addition to the above advantages, complete safety certification is another reason why MEAN WELL products are so well-received by both domestic and foreign customers. It is reported that many world-renowned automatic test equipment (ATE) manufacturers have adopted MEAN WELL's bidirectional power supplies to meet the high requirements of standard battery testing of European, American, and Japanese vehicle manufacturers.
Example of a lithium battery manufacturing process using BIC-2200 series
Energy saving rate of the energy-saving burn-in system is as high as 80%
MEAN WELL provides various energy-conserving products to its customers and strives to save electricity as a company internally. For example, for the burn-in process, MEAN WELL has developed and designed its Energy Recovery System (ERS) ERG-5000, which recycles and reuses the power used initially for burn-in testing.
A small part of the insufficient electric energy is provided by the mains AC, giving an energy-saving rate as high as 81%. ERS saves electricity and reduces emissions of GHGs and harmful gases.
The adoption of this energy-conserving burn-in system has earned MEAN WELL recognition in the "3rd Enterprises Environmental Protection Award" held by the Environmental Protection Administration. Now, MEAN WELL not only uses the ERS internally, but has also promoted it to industry partners, helping everyone save energy and reduce carbon.