Ingeteam has opened a new facility for the manufacture of electronic power and control equipment, which the company will use to supply power converters for applications in railway traction.
Other applications that the power converters will be used for include mining, marine, energy storage, steelmaking, generation plants, and power grids sectors.
The facilities have a manufacturing floor space of 5,500m² and a further 1,000m² of office space. This investment is in line with the forecasts for an increased demand for electrical control equipment in the various sectors that the company operates in.
The factory, located in the Basque Country, Spain, is to be fitted out for the work required by Ingeteam, with plans to start equipment production in January 2019 with a workforce of around 50 employees. Here, the complete power converter manufacturing cycle will be covered: supply chain management, industrialisation, manufacture and quality control. The factory will also be equipped with the appropriate test benches for routine tests of the finished products and also tests on prototypes prior to type approval.
Electronic power converters play a key part in systems that are connected to electrical rotating machinery (generators and motors) and to the power grid. These electronic devices make it possible to achieve greater efficiency and controllability of the different processes such as the electric traction of a train, the hybrid and / or electric propulsion of a vessel, mineral grinding, and the production of steel at a steelworks.
Furthermore, these devices deliver important functionalities to the power grid such as the possibility of storing renewable energy for use by consumers when required, correcting the power factor and, therefore, improving efficiency or regulating the frequency and preventing outages in power grids that are increasingly smarter and more complex.