ABB's 'TIE' Technology: Saving Billions & Slashing Emissions

A 0.2% efficiency gain may appear negligible on paper, but ABB argues it represents a substantial untapped lever in global energy consumption.

The Swiss technology giant has published a new report that dives deep into industrial efficiency, drawing on analysis of more than 1,000 large motors and generators delivered from its Västerås facility between 2015 and 2025.

In the study, ABB finds that seemingly small specification decisions have an influence on long-term electricity demand, operating costs and emissions trajectories across heavy industry.

In the pursuit of net zero, every chance to decarbonise – from sweeping strategies to marginal gains – is important in the big picture, especially in the context of heavy industry.

As such, ABB's research may prove pivotal for cleaning up this carbon-heavy corner of the world economy.

Demystifying industrial energy use

According to the European Commission, electric motors and the systems they power contribute to 50% of global electricity consumption.

This is to say nothing of more traditional generators and machines which are a huge drain on the world's carbon budget.

These kinds of machines often run continuously for years. ABB estimates that their operational phase (when they are running) accounts for roughly 99% of their lifetime CO₂ emissions.

So, what can be done to reduce the energy consumption of these kinds of industrial systems?

David Bjerhad, Global Business Line Manager at ABB, is particularly instructive on this subject.

"Industry has spent decades optimising what happens inside a plant," he says.

"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," he adds.

According to David, ABB's research helps to get to the heart of the issue.

“What our data shows is that the gap between a standard machine and a TIE-optimised (Top Industrial Efficiency) one is not technological. It is a specification gap," he explains.

"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."

Electrification without efficiency

While industrial electrification is underway across sectors like oil and gas, metals, chemicals, utilities and pulp and paper, ABB has warned that switching to electricity alone does not necessarily guarantee lower energy use just yet.

System-wide performance depends on the interaction between motors, driven equipment, controls and operational patterns which, the firm argues, makes these components an important starting point for reducing electricity demand.

ABB says that its commitment to producing TIE-classed equipment is a particularly practical means of achieving higher efficiency.

As Mateusz Zając, ABB's Sustainability Leader for EMEA, recently told Energy Digital: "You cannot do the energy transition without the equipment to power it."

Scaling impact across global industry

Large motors rated above 375kW currently account for around 10.4% of global electricity consumption, with demand expected to double by 2040. This scale means even marginal efficiency gains can have a measurable impact on global energy systems.

ABB reports that TIE improvements can raise synchronous machine efficiency from approximately 98.5% to as high as 98.8%, while induction-based systems may achieve gains of 1–1.5 percentage points.

A 56MW TIE-optimised synchronous motor delivered to a steel plant in India in 2025 illustrates this potential. The system achieved a verified efficiency of 99.13%, setting a world record and is projected to save US$5.9m in electricity costs while avoiding 45,000 tonnes of CO₂ over its lifetime.

Translating marginal gains into system-wide savings

ABB’s central argument is that small efficiency improvements, when applied across industries, translate into big energy savings in the fullness of time.

If all machines delivered from the Västerås facility in the past decade had used TIE specifications, the company estimates that global industry could have saved 11.1TWh of electricity and nearly US$1bn based on US energy prices.

This would also have avoided 5.9 million tonnes of CO₂, equivalent to removing roughly 1.3 million cars from the road for a year.

Looking ahead, a 0.2% efficiency improvement across the global installed base of large motors could reduce electricity demand by 4 to 6TWh annually.

Over a 25-year lifecycle, this equates to 100 to 150TWh saved, alongside US$9.5bn to US$12bn in cumulative cost reductions and 60 to 75 million tonnes of avoided CO₂ emissions.