The demand of systems to monitor energy consumption is constantly growing, together with the concerns around world energy issues. It has therefore become essential for organizations to introduce energy management systems with the aim of reducing, through efficiency, energy consumptions that constitute a large part of production costs.
In addition to this, the enforcement of increasingly stringent regulations is obliging companies to adopt new energy efficiency standards, such as those defined by the recent ISO 50001 standard introduced in June 2011 to replace the UNI EN 16001 standard, concerning Energy Management systems. The ISO 50001 standard represents an opportunity for every organization to confront the energy issue effectively and establish new policies that enable them to follow a systemic approach in improving energy efficiency through targeted investments with rapid returns and the consequent benefits.
The project with Pro.Energy
Gianluca Torrelli, an expert electronic from the maintenance team, has developed an energy consumption monitoring system for its two Campegine and Campagnola factories to monitor the various energy meters connected to the production lines, technical rooms, office lights and air conditioning using Movicon.NExT and the Pro.Energy module from Progea.
In addition, the existing photovoltaic systems can now be connected to and monitored for the energy they produce to obtain more efficient use of electricity. A screen page has been created for each utility or block of utilities to display electrical power and current absorbed in real-time while keeping daily running costs monitored on a dashboard, created with Pro.Energy, according to the different energy contract parameters. The Web Dashboard permits various screens to be displayed containing different objects (Charts, Grids, Gauges...) that are connected to data sources.
As a result, detailed analysis has been created graphically to show data according to the selected customized filter.
This application has made it possible to obtain:
- Knowledge of consumption profiles of the different facilities.
- In depth analysis of energy consumptions.
- Production performance evaluation and regulation of machinery and factory systems.
- Identification and removal of waste, malfunctioning and hidden energy costs.
- Appropriate plans of action to reduce energy bills.
The benefit of OPC UA
The OPC UA protocol present in both Movicon 11 and Movicon.NExT permits natural data exchange between two applications. Movicon 11 provides the production data of each line in order to calculate the ratio of consumption to quantity produced, while Movicon.NExT transmits all alarms for displaying in Movicon 11 clients located in the maintenance office. The generated alarms represent either connection errors, TA power transformer anomaly, critically low voltage rates or inefficient photovoltaic production.
Data usage
Data collected by Pro.Energy are used by Energy Way Srl, together with historical data from monthly bills and readings, to:
- Draw up Energy Audits according to the directives of the Legislative Decree n. 102 of July 2014 –enactment of the 2012/27/ UE Directive
- It proposes a roadmap of interventions targeted at saving energy by installing smart meters (monitored by ProEnergy) that provide the important information needed to lower energy consumptions and take measures to obtain its more efficient use.
The collected and analyzed data permit:
- To know which are the machines/systems that consume more energy.
- To quantify the costs incurred due to carbon leakage in compressed air circuits.
- To evaluate the degree of production line energy loads.
- To evaluate voltage trends.
- In addition, this data also allows the quantification of the results obtained with future interventions targeted at saving energy.
Pro.Energy functional module
With the development of the Pro.Energy© Module, Progea offers a solution to monitor and optimize energy efficiency which is easy to implement and customize. This tool allows organizations to reduce energy costs by analyzing consumptions and introducing energy efficiency concepts that will result in a significant return economically and a reduction in the impact on the environment by the adverse effects of air pollution.
The Movicon. NExT function module allows you to connect to different types of meters applied to the various energy sectors, measure consumptions in real-time, record them on database to subsequently analyze the Energy Key Performance Indicators (EnKPI) by calculating each type of energy consumption. This procedure is targeted at reducing energy waste and increasing its efficiency by optimizing performances where it is used and obtain a rapid return on investments as a consequence. The correct monitoring in real-time of energy consumption permits organizations to intervene where energy waste or overload have been detected.
Pro.Energy© has been designed to be quick and simple to use. Once installed, the wizard automatically creates the monitoring project included with SQL Server database for calculations, dashboards and energy analysis reports. The configuration Wizard allows you to easily select field variables and create databases automatically for collecting and logging data. Dashboards can also be created within a few clicks.
