The combination of Danfoss and Vacon – successfully merged into Danfoss Drives in May 2015, offers 68 years of combined experience and 5,000 people specialised in AC drives. With 13% market share Danfoss Drives believes it is now in a comfortable situation to reinforce and grow the position as a leading player in the market. “Danfoss Drives is expanding accordingly. New sales and service centres are frequently opened around the world and focus is on developing the supply chain to provide even closer cooperation and service excellence. With around 1,000 research and development engineers, Danfoss Drives is able to push the boundaries of innovation to strengthen the competitive edge. The strong R&D will continually develop product innovations and keep the portfolio constantly growing. In addition Danfoss Drives is the only AC drives company that produces the power modules used in the drives themselves ensuring they are perfectly tailored for the dedicated drives.”

Thanks to the merger, Danfoss Drives is able to offer an extended product portfolio incorporating both VLT – and VACON-branded products. Covering a power range from 0.18 kW up to 5.3 MW, the portfolio includes low- and medium-power AC drives, Full power range drives, dedicated drives, decentral drives and servo drives as well as soft starters. “Very exciting news which also supports the growth roadmap is that Danfoss Drives is entering the medium-voltage market with the new VACON 3000 drive available in a power range up to 11 MW. It will have compact and liquid cooled power modules and will share man-machine interface with the VACON Low Voltage drives, ensuring easy usability. To come is also the VLT Midi Drive FC 280 – the most flexible and easy to use drive in its product segment and the successor of the VLT 2800. In addition the well-known workhorse VACON 100 has been extended to 800 kW and is now also available in a 690V version.”

An example of how Danfoss Drives says it differs from competitors is by being motor and system controller independent. This means that the drives are fully functional with any motor be it standard asynchronous motors, permanent magnet motors or Synchronous reluctance motors. This freedom enables customers to choose the motor technology and motor manufacturer that best suit their application. “Moreover, the state-of-the-art software combined with excellent hardware design ensures product leadership – and due to the integrated intelligence it enables support of Internet of Things needs of customers. As an example the drives provide all relevant information for conclusions on the process, based on the knowledge of the motor current reflecting the current load conditions of the drive. The quality of these data allows for, for example sensorless positioning, as presented in the new Integrated Motion Controller, shown at the SPS / IPC / Drives. The evaluation of the available internal data as well as external sensor signals takes place in the drive and is provided via field buses. 4.0 Industrial processes can through the existing infrastructure – at least with Danfoss products – be addressed today.”