Radiating from brainpower of the Automotive Excellence Centre at McMaster University, startup motor developer Enedym in collaboration with industrial neighbors Toyota Tsusho, a manufacturer of industrial trucks, and JFE Shoji Power Canada, a manufacturer of transformer cores and electrical steel products, are transforming their locale in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada into a center for next generation e-power technology. The place has roots. More than a hundred years ago, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla hung out there.
A key element in the new activity is Enedym’s switched reluctance motors which can drive both battery and fuel cell-powered vehicles as well as wind turbine pitch systems and, notably, use magnets not made from rare earth materials.
The province is also home to top-tier automotive supplier Magna International which has recently invested in Niron Magnetics, a startup developer of magnets made from iron and nitrogen instead of rare earths, located in Minnesota. A major producer of components for the automotive industry, Magna has become a significant developer and manufacturer of e-powertrains. It has 158,000 employees in 342 manufacturing operations and 91 product development, engineering and sales centers in 27 countries.
“Clean Earth Magnet” from Niron Magnetics is made from iron and nitrogen, bypassing the need for rare earth mining
Enedym recently completed another successful product development in partnership with Toyota Tsusho Canada, enabling battery and hydrogen-powered commercial tow tractors for airports and manufacturing plants to be equipped with Enedym’s motors.
Through the collaboration, Enedym designed and developed switched reluctance motors and inverters with rated nominal power of approximately 45kW for use in North America and Japan. The magnet-free electric motors can convert small commercial vehicles, or tuggers, commonly used at airports and manufacturing plants, from diesel fuel to battery or hydrogen power.
Enedym is a technology start-up from McMaster University. Headquartered at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton, Ontario, it owns over 60 patents and pending patent applications and related inventions developed by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Hybrid Powertrain Dr. Ali Emadi and his research group at the university’s McMaster Automotive Resource Centre. Toyota Tsusho Canada is a subsidiary of Toyota Tsusho America involved in numerous logistics and supply chain markets. It is a Toyota group company and general trading arm of Toyota Motor.
“This collaboration marks a transformation in the design and use of airport and industrial tuggers that traditionally run on diesel fuel,” said Dr. Ali Emadi, founder, president and CEO of Enedym. “We are excited to join forces with Toyota Tsusho to be on the forefront of converting these diesel-powered vehicles into electric vehicles using Enedym’s patented SRM motor technologies.”
“We are pleased to work with the Enedym team to power a new generation of commercial tuggers,” said Grant Town, president, Toyota Tsusho Canada. “Together, we are aiming to accelerate electrification in industrial vehicles by creating solutions that are environmentally sustainable and cost-effective, and still deliver quality results.”
Enedym also tailors its designs for wind power in the form of its Ventium wind pitch motor. It received a $2.4 milion boost from Sustainable Development Technology Canada in 2022 to commercialize and advance the technology. The switched reluctance motor-based system for wind pitch control is designed to improve the efficiency of wind turbines better than the brushed DC pitch motors traditionally used by mitigating reliability and maintenance issues.
Strategic Partnership with JFE Shoji
Amidst a major expansion to its manufacturing facilities in nearby Burlington, JFE Shoji Canada, a subsidiary of steelmaker JFE Shoji of Japan, has become a key partner for Enedym. One of the largest providers of transformer cores and magnetic materials for electrical engineering in North America, JFE Shoji Canada supplies the electrical steel for Enedym’s motors through a strategic partnership established two years ago. Now the two companies are proposing a large-scale GigaFARM (FARM: Facility for Advanced Rapid Manufacturing) for producing grid components such as transformer cores and electric motor drives at a new facility in Hamilton.
In a recent $20 million expansion, JFE Shoji Power Canada increased its production capacity for distribution transformer core components by 40%, and the production capacity of large power transformer core components by more than double, according to Ron Harper, CEO, who also serves as a board member of Enedym.
As previously reported in Magnetics Magazine, the company’s presence in Ontario began in 2019 when it acquired Cogent Power from Tata Steel Europe. The combination of Cogent and JFE Shoji has become one of the largest processors of electrical steel transformers in the world. JFE Shoji currently has many other production and processing facilities throughout Asia, as well as a facility in Tijuana, Mexico. Based in Tokyo, JFE is one the world’s largest steel producers with over 45,000 employees and operations globally.
Looking back to George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla
For several years, the site of McMaster Innovation Park was home to the cheapest electric power in the entire world. This enabled many industries and significant manufacturing. Hamilton was then known as the “Home of the Manufacturer”. The first Westinghouse manufacturing operation outside of the U.S. was established in Hamilton in 1897 on the very site where McMaster Innovation Park is located.
Enedym is headquartered at the McMaster Innovation Park on the very site where George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla had their operation some hundred years ago. “We are developing the next generation of electric propulsion and our story is part of the comeback story of The Electric City,” says Emadi.
For more info, see www.enedym.com, www.taiamerica.com, www.jfeshojipower.com.
