Manufacturers face escalating energy costs, impacting profitability and sustainability goals. Pinpointing inefficiencies, especially at the machine level, is often challenging due to a lack of readily accessible data. This lack of granular insight hinders effective energy optimization strategies and makes demonstrating ROI on new technologies difficult. Ambitious sustainability targets, such as Net Zero initiatives, further complicate the issue.Emerson's Energy Manager offers a powerful solution to these challenges. This innovative platform provides real-time insights into energy usage, transforming raw data into actionable intelligence. By visualizing consumption trends, anomalies, costs, and CO2 emissions, manufacturers can make informed decisions and implement targeted interventions to significantly reduce energy consumption and operational expenses. The system's scalability and integration with Emerson's Compressed Air Manager deliver a holistic view of resource utilization, maximizing efficiency and achieving substantial cost savings.
Pros And Cons
- Unlocks trapped data and provides access to it.
- Contextualizes and visualizes data, showing anomalies, consumption trends, costs, and CO2 emissions.
- Scalable, deployable on one machine, an entire production line, or several sites.
- Works with Emerson's compressed air manager for a comprehensive view of resource consumption.
- Accelerates cost savings and helps reach energy-saving targets.
- Provides a user interface showing overall consumption distribution between sensors, power demand over time, consumption trends, CO2 emissions, and associated costs.
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The Energy Challenge in Manufacturing
Energy consumption represents a significant overhead cost for manufacturers, often comprising a large percentage of their operational expenses. Rising energy prices exacerbate this issue, impacting both profitability and sustainability goals. Many manufacturers struggle to pinpoint inefficiencies, particularly at the machine level, due to a lack of readily accessible and usable data.
The absence of granular data hinders effective decision-making related to energy optimization. This challenge is compounded by the need to demonstrate ROI for new technologies while simultaneously pursuing ambitious sustainability targets, such as emissions reduction or Net Zero initiatives.
Emerson's Energy Manager Solution
Emerson's Energy Manager is designed to accelerate energy savings by providing real-time insights into energy usage. It unlocks trapped data, contextualizes it, and visualizes consumption trends, anomalies, costs, and CO2 emissions. This allows for informed decision-making and targeted interventions.
The solution's scalability is a key advantage. Its edge hardware enables deployment on individual machines, entire production lines, or multiple sites. Integration with Emerson's Compressed Air Manager further enhances its capabilities, providing a holistic view of resource consumption.
Key Features and Data Acquisition
The Energy Manager utilizes sensors like the Emerson RSTi power meter (providing voltage and power measurements via Modbus TCP) and third-party sensors such as the Yanitza power quality meter (using OPC UA), gathering data on power, voltage, and frequency. This data is processed by edge hardware.
The edge hardware acts as the central processing unit, collecting, computing, and transmitting data to the Emerson software platform. This platform provides a comprehensive dashboard for visualization and analysis, allowing users to monitor energy consumption and identify areas for improvement.
Real-World Results and Case Study
A successful deployment in Europe demonstrated the combined power of the Energy Manager and Compressed Air Manager. By identifying and addressing inefficiencies in both electrical energy and compressed air usage (where significant leaks and inefficiencies commonly exist), substantial cost savings were achieved.
In this specific case, the combined solution resulted in approximately $60,000 in cost savings for multiple machines. This highlights the potential for significant ROI and the effectiveness of the integrated approach to energy management.
Dashboard and User Interface
The user-friendly dashboard provides a clear overview of energy consumption, allowing users to quickly identify anomalies and trends. It displays data from multiple sensors, showing overall consumption, power demand, CO2 emissions, and associated costs.
Detailed drill-down capabilities allow users to investigate specific sensors and machines to pinpoint areas for improvement. This granular level of detail empowers effective decision-making and facilitates precise optimization strategies.
Conclusion: Is Emerson's Energy Manager Worth It?
Emerson's Energy Manager, especially when combined with their Compressed Air Manager, offers a powerful solution for manufacturers seeking to optimize energy consumption and reduce costs. Its real-time monitoring, data visualization, and scalability make it a valuable tool for improving efficiency and sustainability.
The real-world results demonstrate the potential for significant ROI. The ease of use and comprehensive data analysis capabilities make it a compelling option for businesses of all sizes looking to improve their bottom line and environmental impact. The ability to drill down to specific machine level data is a key differentiator.