2. Characteristics of the electric motive power market

Electric power allows the motor to be positioned as close as possible to the machine to be driven, and enables real-time adjustment of the power required to ensure smooth operation of the powered device.

Up to now, it has been customary to distinguish two main areas of application for motive power:

• The first group includes all activities where variable speed is essential for process control. Examples include the metallurgy, textile, paper, plastics and rubber industries, where rolling mills, rollers, extruders and mixers have to be driven, as well as the machine tool, electric traction and marine propulsion sectors. Just over a third (37%) of the industrial sector's total motive power consumption is absorbed by this group.

• The applications in the second group,...