Reduce energy consumption by using the latest automated technologies
20 February 2019
HMI SCADA software has transformed the efficiency of our operators and processes, creating immersive user experiences. It is now simple to unite geographically disparate sites and deliver real insight from vast datasets. However, change is now happening so quickly that the lifecycle of industrial applications has become the very thing limiting operational efficiency.
In the context of rising costs, an ageing workforce, evolving technology and changes to the Ecodesign Directive, Andy Graham, Wonderware Product Manager at SolutionsPT, looks at the changes businesses need to make to their platforms to enable them to extract real value from their industrial applications.
It’s no secret that the UK’s manufacturing industry is going through a period of significant change. With the advent of Industry 4.0 and the emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), coupled with the need for all modern plants to be fully digitised in order to connect with their multiple data points, today’s manufacturers face more operational challenges than ever before. With energy costs continuing to increase, it’s now also more expensive than ever to operate a manufacturing plant.
However, one area where manufacturers can make savings is on their energy expenditure. Becoming energy efficient is a huge challenge for manufacturers, requiring them to combine both regulatory and commercial considerations. But it has become so important that effective energy management is now a business necessity – and unlocking the hidden value of big data holds the key to achieving it.
This issue has become even more pressing since the Ecodesign Directive came into effect in January this year. The Directive, which governs all energy-related products including chillers and industrial coolers, imposed strict new Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for industrial process cooling systems. The new benchmark for an industrial process chiller will be its Seasonal Energy Performance Ratios (SEPR). Minimum SEPRs will be calculated as the ratio between the annual refrigeration demand and its annual electricity consumption.
Process cooling and refrigeration systems currently account for approximately 60 percent of a plant’s total life cycle cost, so inefficient chillers can contribute to highly inflated utility bills which will ultimately impact on the company’s bottom line.
Manufacturers can reduce the energy consumption in their facilities by using the latest automated technologies and through improved monitoring and control of energy used in infrastructure. While the prospect of a complete infrastructure upgrade is impractical for many, with the right platform businesses can develop a stronger, more insightful understanding of their operations, and be able to visualise their energy use and identify any inefficiencies immediately.
Digitisation advancements within industrial automation are enabling the transfer and collection of greater volumes of operational data across the plant floor, which should, in theory, support them in monitoring things such as energy expenditure and efficiency levels. However, not all manufacturing businesses are able to take advantage of this potential insight. In fact, many plants are finding themselves restricted by the lifecycle of their existing industrial applications.
Connecting plant assets with control systems and business systems does require highly specialised personnel resources and precious development time. Similarly, application development, deployment and re-engineering significantly raise project costs across the lifecycle of industrial applications and IIoT-enabled applications require specialised scripting and customisation. So, in reality it’s not simply a case of saying ‘let’s digitise’.
Yet solutions do exist which are capable of effectively bridging the gap between the OT and IT worlds. Wonderware’s System Platform 2017 is one of the latest platforms helping companies to navigate this transition by enabling them to take full advantage of increased IIoT connectedness and digitisation, within a centralised, multi-user collaboration framework.
This has benefits for both engineers and operations managers. For engineers, System Platform’s powerful drag and drop application building and remote deployment capabilities will deliver engineering efficiency. Operations managers can achieve contextualised situational awareness by delivering out-of-the-box content and process visualisation standards that greatly simplify the task of achieving the optimal situational awareness of industrial processes. Crucially, what it delivers to manufacturers is a platform that works with any device, providing access to real-time management dashboards and allowing them to monitor energy consumption in the context of each site, line and operator.
The ability to easily access and analyse data can transform the way a company works. A company which has a better understanding of their plant’s energy usage has a stronger capability of predicting and managing performance and expenditure.
The fact is that much of this data is readily available and locked in process data historians. Accessing it is simply a question of starting with the right foundation.
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