The 2026 Cornerstone Award went to a group of engineers at ABB who have developed a new energy-efficient and resource-efficient electric motor system. The EUR 10,000 award is presented by Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK and Tekniska Föreningen i Finland TFiF.
Improving the energy efficiency of electric motors has a huge impact on the climate; in the EU, for example, electric motors account for more than half of all electricity consumption.
”ABB’s work group has developed a synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) and variable speed drive (VSD) package that has quickly become a commercial success. This proves that businesses, too, engage in cutting-edge research”, wrote the jury in its assessment.
Induction motor technology has been the most commonly used technology in electric motors for decades.
”The operation of a synchronous reluctance motor is based purely on guiding magnetic flux and there is no squirrel cage, which results in less loss and higher efficiency and therefore better energy performance”, explains ABB’s Global Product Manager Ari Tammi.
”The electronic VSDs that are used to regulate the speed of induction motors have become so widely available that it is now possible to also introduce the market to a motor designed specifically for these drives. The SynRM market keeps growing as VSDs become increasingly common and energy performance requirements get tighter and tighter.”
The system developed by ABB meets these rising demands. Lower energy consumption also reduces carbon dioxide emissions.
”Reaching the highest efficiency levels using induction motors is becoming more and more difficult and less and less cost-effective all the time, but synchronous reluctance motors are an excellent solution to this problem. Meeting energy performance criteria is easier with synchronous reluctance motors than with induction motors, which allows customers to switch to processes with lower emissions,” Tammi (in the photo) says.
Synchronous reluctance motors are made of just copper and iron, and they are therefore also easy to recycle at the end of their useful lives.
Developing the SynRM-VSD package has required a vast amount of research, testing and prototypes before the technology could be commercialised.
”Even the most ingenious innovation only becomes an innovation once customers begin to use it. We have achieved a high level of market adoption with our SynRM-VSD system in a matter of a few years, and our turnover from these motor-drive packages now exceeds EUR 10 million. New uses for the technology are being discovered all the time, including water-cooled SynRM and SynRM for explosive atmospheres”, Tammi explains.
”An innovation of this kind could hardly have been born anywhere other than at ABB and in Finland, as developing a SynRM-VSD package that actually works has required cutting-edge know-how in both motor and drive technology. We have both at ABB in Finland.”
The award jury also praised the work group for demonstrating how even technologies that have been in use for a long time can still be radically improved to take society in a more positive direction.
”With electric motors accounting for such a high percentage of global energy consumption, even small enhancements in their energy efficiency make a big difference. That is why there is still more work to be done to increase the efficiency of electric motors”, Tammi says.
Cornerstone 2026: ABB’s SynRM-VSD work group
Matti Eskola, ABB Oy, Drives
Jouni Ikäheimo, ABB Oy, IEC LV Motors
Jere Kolehmainen, Ampere SAS (ex ABB Oy, IEC LV Motors)
Tero Känsäkangas, ABB Oy, IEC LV Motors
Ari Tammi, ABB Oy, IEC LV Motors
Matti Veijanen, ABB Oy, Drives