The latest from SIBA.
Current news from the world of fuse protection

"As long as electricity needs to be secured, we'll be there," says SIBA Managing Director Michael Schröer. So it's no wonder that electricity, an increasingly important energy source in times of electromobility and the energy transition, is fueling SIBA's growth: the company increased its turnover from 60 to 100 million euros between 2020 and 2022. More orders, more work, more space required: SIBA therefore moved to the Westfalia campus in the Wethmar district of Lünen in April last year and relocated the production of miniature fuses, which are often used to protect sensitive...

According to the organizers, "Solar Power Africa 2023 is the first event of its kind dedicated solely to Solar Power and Energy storage and is expected to attract over 100 exhibitors operating in this dynamic market." The event is a partnership between the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) and Messe Frankfurt and has took place in 2019 for the first time. Its launch had confirmed "South Africa’s leading position in driving the continent’s transition to renewable energy", the organisers state."SIBA South Africa is proud to be an exhibitor", SIBA South...

The first analogue Night of Training in Lünen after a two-year pandemic-induced break from the classroom attracted a lot of young people who were interested in seeing what a fuse manufacturer could teach them. Apprentices had worked in their free time and after work to set up and staff their information stations in the company. They provided a practical demonstration of what a mechatronics technician actually does: setting up, adjusting and operating programmable logic controllers, for example. Visitors also learned that toolmaking involves installing customised machine elements in all...

Although SIBA joined the EcoVadis certification scheme only a year ago, it won the bronze medal right out of the starting gate in 2021, and in this year’s round was able to improve on its performance by moving to second place on the winners’ podium. According to its own data, EcoVadis provides the world’s most trusted sustainability ratings. In 2021, more than 90,000 companies from 160 countries worldwide opted for a business sustainability rating by EcoVadis, including global heavyweights such as Alcatel and Henkel. A successful rating...

Closer to the airport, closer to couriers’ and freight forwarders’ warehouses, closer to our customers: On the 1st of March 2022, SIBA South Africa will move to new premises, approximately 15 kilometres east of the current headquarters in Johannesburg’s Jeppestown district.  The new headquarters, located in Unit 45 at 5 Sunrock Close, Sunnyrock, in Johannesburg’s Germiston district, will be home to SIBA South Africa’s sales and administration departments as well as a warehouse. Thanks to the new location, customers can look forward to even faster and more...

Raw material shortages and rising prices can also trigger unexpected movements in the field of material price indices. Thus, with no prior warning whatsoever, Schutzvereinigung DEL-Notiz e.V. has ceased publication of its metal quotations, including the DEL copper quotation, with effect as of 14 February 2022, despite the importance of these indices for the industry.  SIBA must therefore inform its business partners that it is now no longer able to evidence its metal price surcharges on the basis of the DEL quotations. Instead, SIBA will in future reference a corresponding copper...

The new IEC 60 269-7 standard was published just before Christmas. Two completely new utilisation categories now provide enhanced safety for the increasingly high-performance energy storage systems now in operation. Back in 2010 the standards committees responded to the special challenges facing PV systems by introducing the gPV class and battery storage installations are now to be given similar protection. The challenges facing electric protection are very real indeed: such systems have capacity ratings of several hundred MWh and require a special level of protection. After all, short-circuit...

Despite having finalised all preparations for the event, SIBA, in response to the ever-worsening COVID-19 situation especially in the south of Germany, has decided against a presence at SPS. The entire fair team, which had put a lot of effort into preparing for the event and was looking forward to engaging in personal dialogue with clients and an expert audience, is truly sorry but fully supports the decision. “Staying healthy is our priority” is how the team put it and, by not appearing in person, also wants to contribute to keeping the fourth wave of the pandemic from rising...

Cired2021, which was again organised as a virtual event, provided SIBA with a slot to showcase its latest innovation - and indeed ICS technology (Improved Cycle Stability) provides an effective solution for a well-known problem that affects fuses fitted to wind power plants. A series of fuses can provide several years of trouble-free operation and then can trip without any electrical reason. SIBA decided to team up with other experts and a research institute to investigate this phenomenon and as a result was not only able to identify the cause of the problem but also succeeded in...

Around one hundred members of staff participated in the vaccination campaign that was organised by fuse makers SIBA during the summer months. This initiative alone meant that about one quarter of the company's total workforce of 433 have now been fully vaccinated, as the campaign comprised two vaccination sessions – one in June and one in July. As staff members were also able to make their own private arrangements outside these dates, the total quota of fully-vaccinated employees has now risen to about 75 percent. The offer of vaccination not only applied to core staff but also included...

Fuse maker SIBA's readiness to maintain close contact with the local educational landscape has seen a twofold payback this summer, as budding engineers from the technical institute at Werne Vocational College produced a 'proper mechatronics' final assessment project that really sparkled. And as a result SIBA got a fully functional pilot system that has solved the problem of how metal blanks can be delivered, perfectly aligned, to the company's new stamping press.  This SIBA initiative was to create something special, for the three trainee engineers were to have the rare opportunity to...

A Bronze medal at the very first go: Fuse manufacturer SIBA has subjected its sustainability strategy to assessment by the international CSR rating enterprise EcoVadis – and achieved a highly respectable outcome at the very first attempt, with the testers awarding a Bronze medal. EcoVadis is not just anybody. After all, some 75,000 business enterprises now have their performance in the field of sustainability rated by Ecovadis, making the platform one of the world’s leading providers, with services used by multinational corporations, among others. Their aim is not only to check...

The new standard for gBAT fuses, which are safety fuses designed for energy storage systems, is still awaiting publication. According to the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) this should happen sometime this year. However, SIBA has been working for some time with researchers at TU Dresden's Department for High Voltage and High Current Technology on designing fusible elements that can perform at a higher level than the standard requires. The project, which has Federal Ministry backing, has now just about reached its mid-way mark and has already yielded some...

German fuse maker SIBA has collected over 24 tonnes of used fuses for the NH-HH-Recyclingverein – equivalent to more than ten percent of the association’s total annual volume of a good 210 tonnes. This is just one of the facts to emerge from its 25th annual report, which was published in March. SIBA’s commitment is, however, no coincidence, as the company has been a member of the Recyclingverein since the very beginning in May 1995. And therefore, in its look back over a “Quarter-century of sustainability”, the association also gives Thomas Kubiak, head of...

Despite the current circumstances, Lünen-based fuse manufacturer SIBA is still well able to serve its customers – not least because the company opted to modernise and expand its activities several years ago. In 2018 SIBA inaugurated a production island featuring several industrial robots, and 2019 saw the introduction of a smart high-bay warehouse, improving SIBA’s delivery capacity significantly. Last but not least, last year the go-ahead was given for a step-wise renewal of the laboratory – the centerpiece of the R&D activities of the “hidden champion”...

The current boom in renewables and new developments in power electronics require component manufacturers to massively scale up their production. All the more important, therefore, to ready as many parts and components as possible for mounting on printed circuit boards using a fully or semi-automated process. This is where SIBA’s newly designed 14x51 mm fuse series comes in: not only is it available with bolted contacts, but now also with soldering pins. The new fuse version completes SIBA’s offering for manufacturers of power electronics components, as the company’s NH000,...

“Without silver, the lights will go out!” With that warning and an educational film on the importance of silver, NH-HH-Recyclingverein has taken a stand against a push to classify the precious metal as reprotoxic in the EU. The organisation, a joint venture between manufacturers of electric fuses, hopes its efforts will point out the consequences such a classification will evoke for economy and consumers. It would prevent silver from being effectively used as fusible elements in fuses, among other applications. Silver, by far the best electrical conductor, keeps power losses in...

Powerful HV HRC fuses have been protecting energy grids worldwide for decades. As renewable energy generation plants grow, they need increasingly optimized transformer fuses. In the past, that has kept power losses relatively high. SIBA’s innovative Think Green product line succeeds not only in meeting all electrical protection requirements but also in reducing power losses up to 30 percent. That means if all of the roughly 400,000 distribution transformers currently protected with HV HRC fuses in Germany were outfitted with SIBA Think Green fuses, power consumption would fall around 13...

As you will know, our SMD 160020 miniature fuse, which featured a new design measuring 20 mm in length (5.3 x 20), was already capable of breaking high rated currents of up to 20 A and was an excellent addition to our wide range of SMD fuses.  We have now succeeded in designing an SMD fuse for rated currents of up to 20 A which, at 4.5 x 16 mm, not only has a smaller footprint, but is also available for 12.5 A and 16 A in addition to 20-A currents. All new variants of our 160016 SMD series are capable of breaking high short-circuit currents, with specifications including 1500A@DC125V...

The Lünen-based fuse maker has reorganized its Asian business at the turn of the year 2019/2020 with a newly established subsidiary, SIBA Asia Pte Ltd taking over SIBA's client support operations in the Asia-Pacific region. Like the old SIBA Far East office, the new company is also based in Singapore, but has moved to new premises in the central Kallang district. For SIBA, the reorganisation has come at just the right time, as the previous manufacturer’s representative retired at the end of 2019. Asian business partners have already been notified of the changeover and have been...