Companies are increasingly focusing on production-level energy monitoring to allow for more efficient, sustainable and forward-looking planning. Information about possible reactive currents can be used to implement suitable solutions for reactive power compensation and thus avoid unnecessary costs. For this purpose, energy meters are used.
In the production process, sensors are mechanically finalised at an assembly island before being put through the quality assurance process. At the assembly island, more and more IT components are required to satisfy the growing demand for digital support in the assembly process and to record and provide order-related data. This passive production equipment accounts for an increasingly significant portion of total energy consumption.
Measures to save energy and optimise energy consumption can only be effective if the energy requirements are known in detail. Each energy meter your supplier uses to bill electricity consumption can help to obtain an overview. But when it comes to evaluating the efficiency of energy-saving measures, existing solutions have been inadequate so far:
Digital recording of energy consumption
The prerequisite for any energy-saving and optimisation measures is to digitally track the energy consumed by dividing production into meaningful areas. Energy transparency increases awareness of energy usage, ensuring a more careful use of electricity and thus reducing costs.
Integrating moneo RTM makes it possible to:
Energy metering via Modbus TCP with LR Agent and moneo RTM
The assembly island uses a three-phase supply (L1, L2 and L3). In these supply lines, a three-phase energy meter with Modbus TCP interface was installed. LR Agent enables reliable reading of the required Modbus registers. In moneo RTM, the values are monitored and analysed and consumption costs are immediately calculated.
Identify base load costs to derive energy-saving measures
Transparent energy consumption with moneo RTM
The analysis function allows the user can access history data and compare different process values. The diagram shows the power consumption and the correlating costs over time.
It can be seen that there is a base load of 0.3 kW during standby at the weekend, which results in costs of approx. 0.9 cents per hour. While this doesn’t sound like much, it adds up to about €2,150* over the course of a year. Especially in this passive area without active value creation, measures that reduce the need for energy can have a noticeable effect on total costs.
The diagram also reveals a clear difference between the night shift and the early shift. For example, if production takes place 24/7 on weekdays, costs could be reduced by using multi-tariff agreements (day rate/night rate) and corresponding task schedules for the different shifts. Consequently, energy-intensive equipment, such as the Binder furnace, could be operated more intensively during low-rate periods, while reducing its use during high-rate periods.
* 1 weekend = 46 h of production-free time
1 year = 52 weeks ≈ 52 weekends
0.9€/h * 46h * 52 = €2,152.80
The measured variables provided by the energy meter in the Modbus registers are read using LR Agent and booked into moneo. However, they do not always appear in the desired unit. Power values are typically expressed in kW. The standard SI unit is Watt, which is also used in the registers. Using a ‘data flow’ function, the input variable (W) can be converted into the desired unit (kW).
Equally helpful for evaluating and analysing the consumption values is to calculate the costs of power consumed. These are usually billed by the energy supplier in kilowatt hours. The basic parameter used for this calculation is the input power converted into kilowatt hours in the previous data flow. Two data flows are created: