Written by Nigel Dawbarn, Market Segment Manager – Control & Industry Solutions
A regular challenge today is the reduction of energy usage. Businesses are now under more pressure to reduce energy usage, but how do you go about this?
You need to understand your current position then you can review the facts and work out what you can do to achieve a reduction from your situation. You then monitor your progress, which will lead to effective energy management.
Three Levels of energy monitoring
Phoenix Contact can help at the point of energy data acquisition with hardware you can install to record your current usage.
We offer a range of applications which can sit on a SD Card and are installed on a PLC. These are configured to suit what you are trying to measure, whether it be an existing energy meter, an analogue input, a temperature sensor, a flow sensor or a device communicating over Modbus.
The PLC can then be configured to pass the information up to a higher level system of your choosing via OPC Server, Modbus or a CSV file. You can then analyse the information and
- Identify and explain excessive usage
- Detect instances when consumption is unexpectedly higher or lower than when you would expect
- Visualise the energy consumption trends by using a SCADA package to look at daily weekly and monthly trends
- Diagnose problem machines which are consuming too much energy and make changes to machines or plant
- Monitor how your changes have affected your energy consumption
We can help with hardware from air flow and pressure sensors, current transducers, energy meters, the PLC and I/O. Just let us know what you need to measure!
We welcome your enquiries regarding our potential energy monitoring solutions, please telephone Nigel on 07584 514958 or email ndawbarn@phoenixcontact.com or take a look at our web page for energy and power measuring.
