ABB: Choosing Industrial Efficiency Can Save Billions

Industrial motors rated above 375 kW consume an estimated 10.4% of global electricity today, according to ABB.

The company says demand could double by 2040, and that specification decisions made during procurement can determine decades of energy costs and emissions.

ABB has published a report titled The Industrial Efficiency Gap: How a 0.2% Decision Scales to Billions, examining more than 1,000 large motors and generators delivered from the company's Västerås facility between 2015 and 2025.

Why specification choices matter

Large motors and generators can operate continuously for 25 years or longer. ABB says the use phase accounts for about 99% of lifetime CO₂ emissions from these assets.

"Industry has spent decades optimising what happens inside a plant. Yet large motors and generators have rarely been part of that conversation, even though they run continuously for 25 years and sometimes even more, converting more energy than almost anything else on site,” says David Bjerhag, Global Business Line Manager, High Speed Synchronous, ABB.

“What our data shows is that the gap between a standard machine and a TIE-optimised one is not technological. It is a specification gap.

"The companies closing it fastest are the ones where the engineer who selects the motor and the CFO or CSO responsible for energy performance are aligned around a single metric: total cost of ownership. That alignment is what TIE is designed to create." 

Procurement as a lever

According to ABB, the main barrier is not technology, cost or complexity. The company says short-term buying mindsets shaped by regional energy prices and fragmented value chains separate purchase decisions from operational costs.

The report argues that buyers should weigh total cost of ownership rather than only initial purchase price. ABB says the upfront premium for the most efficient option can be offset by years of lower energy spend.

The company says asking for the TIE option can deliver payback from a few months to up to three years. The remaining years of the asset life then contribute directly to productivity and cost reduction.

Every request for quotation on a large motor or generator is a chance to lock in long-term value, the report says.

Efficiency gains at scale

ABB says a typical TIE improvement lifts synchronous machine efficiency from around 98.5% to 98.7-98.8%. Induction-based systems can often achieve 1 to 1.5 percentage points more, according to the company.

The report highlights a 56 MW TIE-optimised synchronous motor delivered to a steel plant in India in 2025. ABB says the machine achieved a verified efficiency of 99.13% and set a new world record.

The motor is expected to save US$5.9m in electricity costs and avoid 45,000 tonnes of CO₂ over its lifetime, according to ABB. The company positions its Top Industrial Efficiency option as a route to higher performance without added complexity or compromised reliability.

Industrial electrification is accelerating across sectors including oil and gas, metals, chemicals, utilities and pulp and paper. ABB says electrification alone is not enough, and that overall system efficiency depends on the full motor-driven system, including driven equipment, controls and operating profile.

Projecting cumulative savings

ABB's financial argument is built around scale and time. The report says that if every standard machine delivered by the Västerås factory over the past decade had been specified under the TIE option, global industry could already have saved 11.1 TWh of electricity and nearly US$1bn at US energy costs.

According to ABB, 5.9m tonnes of CO₂ could have been avoided. The company says this is equivalent to roughly 1.3m cars off the road for a year.

Looking at the broader installed base, ABB says a 0.2% efficiency uplift across large industrial motors could save four to six TWh a year. On a 25-year lifetime basis this could translate into 100 to 150 TWh of electricity saved, US$9.5bn to US$12bn in cumulative cost savings and 60-75m tonnes of CO₂ avoided, according to the company.

The report says that because these machines are widespread in heavy industry, even small efficiency improvements can compound across factories, plants and regions.