Shawn Tierney meets up with Ivan Spronk of Siemens to learn about the SINAMICS G220 Clean Power Drive in this episode of The Automation Podcast.

For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video.

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The Automation Podcast, Episode 251 Show Notes:

Special thanks to Ivan Spronk of Siemens for coming on the show, and to Siemens for sponsoring this episode so we could release it “ad free!” To learn about the topics discussed in this episode, checkout the below links:

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  White Paper – Drives Harmonics – Siemens US

  
  


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  SINAMICS G220 Website

  
  


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  SINAMICS G220 Catalog

  
  


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  Siemens Product Configurator (SPC) for quick part number selection and access to data sheets and CAD files

  
  


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  Siemens energy savings calculator, SinaSave 

  
  

Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated)

Shawn Tierney (Host): Thank you for tuning back into the automation podcast. My name is Shawn Tierney from Insights and Automation. And this week, I meet up with Iren Sprock from Siemens to learn all about their g two twenty clean power drive. I also wanna thank Siemens for sponsoring this episode so I can bring it to you completely ad free. So with that said, I wanna welcome back to the show Ivan from Siemens to talk about VFDs.

And, this is something we’ve been wanting to talk about for a while. But before you jump into your presentation, Ivan, could you introduce yourself to our audience for those who maybe didn’t catch your last appearance?

Ivan Spronk (Siemens): Thanks a lot for just having me, back to the show here. I got a slide up here that introduces myself. I’m the product manager for the Synamix variable frequency drives for Siemens here in The US. So, yeah, happy to be back on your show. And what I would, like to talk to you about and discuss with you is our latest variable frequency drive.

It’s the g two twenty and specifically the clean power drive. This is a best in class solution for a grid friendly power quality when using variable frequency drives. So Shawn, you audience may be wondering why we should discuss power grids and variable frequency drives, but I’ll just say if you’ve been around variable frequency drives or VFDs as I’ll refer to them, you’ve likely had conversations or heard something about VFDs creating or generating harmonics on the power grid.

Shawn Tierney (Host): Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ivan Spronk (Siemens): Yeah. Or maybe you’ve, you know, someone in the audience has been involved in a situation where harmonic current and associated voltage distortion on your plants electrical grid were causing overheating on transformers and cabling or potentially causing circuit breakers to trip their fuses to open. Or maybe you’re just an engineer looking to select and specify a variable frequency drive and you may need to answer some questions about harmonics that typical VFDs generate. You can relate to any of those or if you’re just interested to know more about this topic, we’ll invite you to stay tuned here for the next thirty five to forty minutes for discussion on power quality and VFDs. So, Shawn, I’d like to just ask you, have you heard anything about the power grid lately?

Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, yes. I’ve heard lots about the power grid. I know that this is more and more becoming a big issue because when you have a lot of VFDs producing all kinds of harmonics, that can cause lots of problems like the ones you just mentioned. But, also, the utilities are starting to to see this and saying, why are we putting up with this? So aside from the power grid needing to be hardened against all kinds of things, everything from EMTs to, you know, just, you know, Yahoo’s shooting transformers in the middle of nowhere.

This has been a, I think, a big and growing issue. That’s why I’m glad that you’re on the talk about this because in the preshow, we just really I really got a sense of how important this was, you know, in 2025 and going into 2026.

Ivan Spronk (Siemens): Lots of conversations about the grid and really how the grid electrical grid is being stretched. And with all of the, you know, data centers being built, you know, lots of conversations about how power is gonna be supplied with those. In other words, I think for maybe the first time in twenty five to thirty years, they’re anticipating our usage and power requirements going up. So that’s why I think all these utilities and plant operators are interested in the grid. So some reasons to discuss then the power grid and variable frequency drives is variable frequency drives very useful for motor control, but left unchecked, they can introduce several power quality issues.

Harmonics, as you can see on the screen here, typical VFDs use rectifiers that generate nonlinear currents that also distort the voltage waveform and these harmonics can propagate through the electrical grid. And, you know, with that voltage waveform potentially affecting other equipment or you know at worst case other utility customers. These voltage fluctuations can lead to flicker in lighting and perhaps even take other sensitive devices offline. Typical VFDs some of them can negatively impact power factor. Again, something that’s of interest to utilities and plant operators.

And just you know there could be some resonant frequencies set up that may interfere with other things. So those are all things that yeah, harmonics, and you know, the voltage fluctuation, things that are unfavorable I’ll say. And what I’d like to do here Shawn is just gonna introduce, you know, what I want to tell you is we have a very unique product here in the SINAMICS g two twenty clean power drive. Three advantages of this product we’ll wanna talk about here through through the course of this podcast. One is the clean power technology.

So you can see total harmonic current distortion is well under the strictest harmonic standards there at less than 2%. It delivers near unity power factor under almost any load conditions. And I’ll just say, you know, there has been technologies out there that have been able to produce, you know, those two attributes of of, you know, low current harmonic distortion and near unity power factor. But what’s most unique about, this product we’re that we’re launching here is the compact space saving design, and it is the smallest low harmonics drive in the market. And also available, it’s all self contained, so there’s nothing extra to install.

It’s all in one footprint. And I’ll give you an example here. This product is released up to a through 150 horsepower now. By the end of the year we’ll have it released up through 200 horsepower. So this is a relatively new product on the market.

But that 200 horsepower drive imagine this Shawn less than three feet tall, less than 12 inches wide, and about 14 inches deep. That’s a 200 horsepower drive, that will guarantee these, things I’ve got got here with low distortion and near unity power factor.

Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, that’s not something I would have thought of is that these clean drives are more clean power drives are typically larger than their standard cousins. And so the fact that you’ve been able to get these smaller and closer to the sizes of the standard drive is pretty impressive.

Ivan Spronk (Siemens): You’re quite we we’d like to think so. Let’s dig into, you know, first of all, if, you know, I I said variable frequency drives or typical very free frequency drives can generate harmonics. So why why would people wanna use VFDs? Turns out variable frequency drives are really good at two things. One, saving energy, and two, improving processes.

So just, you know, kind of as a reminder, why do people wanna use variable frequency drives? Just a reminder. Yeah. Half the wo