SIBA is a family-owned mid-size fuse manufacturer. The company develops and produces their products exclusively at the head office in Lünen, Germany. SIBA is however represented worldwide by 10 subsidiaries and other sales partners.
SIBA as a whole has been growing continually since its foundation in 1946, with their international business operations increasing exponentially over the last decades.
Because of the abovementioned growth of our export department, SIBA now generates more than half of their yearly turnover abroad.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
SIBA: We are specialists for electric fuses. Our own research and development department including our laboratory allows us to work closely with the customer in order to develop fuses that fit very individual requirements.
Our fuses are used by demanding customers in a wide array of different industries to ensure the electrical safety for a multitude of applications.
These industries include the entire energy industry from power grid operators and manufacturers in the field of renewable energies to producers of switchgear or electric charging stations for e-mobility.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
SIBA: More and more companies are betting on PV installations for their own power generation. They mostly use string inverters whose AC side supplies higher voltages, because it is more efficient. SIBA has adjusted accordingly and thus created a new range of products with special fuses developed to function according to these exacting requirements. They are specifically designed for voltages of 800 V AC and more.
Additionally, we offer improved solutions for battery storage systems with high-performance short-circuit and component protection. Due to our decades of development experience, we are capable of developing various fuses for these increasingly complex systems.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
SIBA: Our product portfolio includes a wide range of electrical fuses. It starts with high-voltage, high-capacity fuses for power systems and large transformers.
In addition to these high-voltage fuses, we provide ultra-rapid fuses, extremely fast-blow fuses to ensure safety around power electronics, renewable energies and energy storage systems.
Our low-voltage high-breaking-capacity fuses protects switchgear, machinery and different components such as load-break switches.
Finally, yet importantly, we have our miniature fuses, which provide comprehensive solutions for the industrial electronics sector including power supplies, motor applications and more.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
SIBA: There is currently an upheaval in the energy sector as a whole. Climate protection and the turnaround in energy policy heavily affect the energy market and consequently the adjacent markets to it – in other words, precisely the markets that we are currently operating in.
It is foreseeable that the already leading role of electrical energy will only become increasingly important with time. Fossil fuels are currently being replaced by electric power drives, which in turn will be increasingly generated using renewable technologies.
By taking an extensive look at these developments, it becomes apparent, that the demand for protection technology for electrical energy from renewable sources will go hand in hand with it.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
SIBA: Apart from the aforementioned macro trends, we are also adapting to smaller trends, for example the idea of DC factories. As many applications in production plants run on DC anyway, the increasingly self-produced energy from PV and wind power plants can be integrated more effectively.
Considering that this also simplifies mutual balancing in a DC-grid, we see promising prospects for this approach. With our numerous fuses for DC applications, we are already well equipped for this, but we are still further expanding our portfolio in this direction.
Another observable development that is that energy systems are becoming more powerful due to more renewable energy generation in production plants. More and more modules are being combined to form increasingly powerful battery networks. This requires fuses that are capable of adequately protecting these modules at every required point with a switching capacity that is optimally matched to each other.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
SIBA: Among our most innovative products are two of our latest developments. The first being ICS technology, which is used in our fuses for wind turbines. Fuses equipped with this technology last much longer. This protects the fuses by preventing premature shutdown and thus promotes the operational safety of wind turbines. Additionally, these fuses save energy and CO2.
Our solutions for the battery storage systems mentioned before are also innovative – technological advancements are indispensable to provide the necessary performance for this sector.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
SIBA: The trends and topics of renewable energy, energy saving and CO2 avoidance will continue to grow in importance over the coming year. We continue to expect high demand for our fuse for the DC area and semiconductor protection. We are constantly expanding our portfolio in these areas.
Besides these trends, we are also focusing on staying flexible to allow us to adapt to sudden changes and disruptions due to the ongoing pandemic. We strive to maneuver through the rest of the pandemic as good as we have done up to this point.