Experts agree that energy efficiency could save up to 20% of the energy currently consumed, and this represents an important leverage strategy for several companies in different markets to reduce costs, thus improving the competitiveness and giving a green profile to their industrial reality, last but not least following the EU Directive 2012/27 that is becoming more and more a critical factor in the territory.
In such environment, energy management systems (SGE) are becoming really important by supporting customers in their path and goal to reach energy efficiency.
As one of the market leaders and benchmarks in industrial automation, Advantech has always been dedicated to explore new technologies with a special attention to the research and design of industrial products, and this is the reason why Advantech is providing new rugged and highly reliable system components that are not only eco-friendly, but also power efficient with control technology. These products can be applied to a variety of power and energy markets, including: renewable solar and wind power generation, nuclear simulation, substation automation systems, electrical car charging station solutions, and recently building energy saving systems. But in order to be more and more competitive and really focused, Advantech has recently closed a new partnership with two companies with whom it is now possible to offer a complete SGE vertical solution featured by a dedicated energy SW.
Thanks to the partnership with ADV Service as a System Integrator and ONIT Group as an Expert Software House, we have recently implemented a SGE solution featuring our UNO-2362 with EKI-1221 with On.Energy SW platform released by ONIT Group. In such a context, it was extremely important that all the processes guaranteed an effective, reliable and precise system of measuring and accounting.
The system helped to maximize the efficiency of the industrial process, including the equipment for measuring the energy consumption and the centralized units for data collection and process, and enabled to identify and manage possible anomalies.
And in fact this system, named ADV Energy Gateway, helps energy managers to study and identify the areas with the most intensive energy flows inside the factory in order to propose suitable solutions aimed to a continuous improvement and a real cost reduction.
ADV Energy Gateway includes two main parts: the first one is related to the meters installed in the critical points of consumption connected to the industrial UNO-2362 PC by Advantech, that makes the collection and the sampling of the data possible; while the second one is represented by On.Energy web platform, developed by Onit Group, which enables the processing of data by the end user.
The solution enables the monitoring of consumption including its associated energy factors, data analysis through energy index and KPIs, performance control via an advanced system of alarms and messages, development of an industrial energy accounting that provides analysis by cost center, profitability evaluation by product type and efficiency check of the machines and equipment used in the production cycle.
The complete solution is implemented by ADV Service who is in charge, as Advantech system integrator, of the supply and the installation of all devices (meters and PC Advantech) and the final implementation of the system including the management of the platform at customer site.
By Cristina Ravaioli, iAutomation Sales Account, Advantech Europe BV
