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DC buses and microgrids have drawn significant attention due to the ease of integration of distinct sources and energy storage systems. However, most research refers to the use of DC buses for residential, datacenter, and telecommunication applications rather than manufacturing industry, where processes are controlled by AC motor drivers. This work proposes a novel approach for DC bus used as primary power supply in manufacturing industrial plants instead of the regular AC bus. Differently from current applications, the DC bus voltage presents variable magnitude and promotes energy recovery aiming to improve energy efficiency. This new conception proposed has a capacitor bank directly connected across the DC bus and it is responsible for storing the energy that, otherwise, would be lost during motor braking process. Simulation using PSIM and experimental results in an industrial process of a real PVC injection machine supplied directly by the DC bus in which the voltage varies in the range from 535 V to 600 V are used to prove the new conception here proposed. The obtained results showed that the DC bus needs no rigid control of the voltage magnitude and a reduction of up to 5.05% in energy consumption was obtained during the evaluated process.

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