Intelligent energy management from Siemens: Three steps to a continuous increase in energy efficiency for plants

Creating transparency and identifying potential savings, which can be cost-effectively realized with selected products and solutions– that's intelligent energy management from Siemens.
The collection and recording of consumption data, and the visualization of energy and media flows in the company are key aspects and the basis for higher energy efficiency. If you want to save energy, you first need to create transparency. This needs to include all forms of energy (electricity, gas, steam, compressed air, heat, cold, etc.). Only when you know where, how much, and what type of power is being used can you estimate the savings potential and technical effort required to obtain it.

Scalable solutions for SIMATIC PCS 7 enable efficient energy management with maximum flexibility. Even today, a wide variety of Siemens products communicate electrical parameters such as current, voltage and power factors, including circuit breakers (Sentron), frequency converters (Sinamics) and motor starters (ET 200S). All other (energy) consumers can be integrated in PCS 7 through multifunction measuring instruments, for example, through the Sentron PAC series. Data display can be configured with standard PCS 7 tools. This makes it easily to implement basic power monitoring.

Complete, integrated energy management is only possible if the relevant process information is acquired automatically and made available in a suitable form. The software add-on SIMATIC powerrate, for analysis and evaluation of energy flows, supports the workflow and automates reporting. The b.data software package is available to provide an efficient and optimized energy management system with originator-based allocation of energy costs and transfer into the accounting system. This extends the transparency up to the corporate management level.

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Comprehensive portfolio for efficient, integrated energy management: From the field level to the corporate management level, Siemens offers intertwined hardware and software components for efficient energy management. SIMATIC powerrate standardizes, visualizes and logs energy and power demand averages, and it monitors power limits based on process and application-specific requirements. b.data offers a variety of functions for advanced energy management, focusing on energy accounting, controlling, planning and procurement, providing transparency for reporting based on meaningful KPIs.

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Identify: Multifunction measuring instruments, low-voltage switching devices, circuit breakers and motor control centers provide energy data to SIMATIC PCS 7. Non-electric energy, such as water, gas, heat or compressed air can be recorded with appropriate field devices and included in the energy consumption analysis.

The SIMATIC powerrate Add-on integrates all three steps of Siemens’ energy management within the process control system. SIMATIC powerrate seamlessly integrates into SIMATIC PCS 7, records relevant energy data from the field using additional function blocks and prepares it for further processing. Ready-made faceplates, are available for visualization and processing of energy data, with minimal configuration required. Excel functions provide automated allocation of energy consumption/costs to cost centers, production plants or batches, and reduce the burden of reporting considerably.

Maximum transparency through consistent, uninterrupted data acquisition

The energy data measured by intelligent sensors and actuators are collected by SIMATIC PCS 7, processed and finally saved in the standard PCS 7 archive. The information is visualized on operator stations and additional analysis can also be performed. The combination of energy data and process data in the same system allows simplified calculation of energy specific production data.

Originator-based representation of consumption data

In addition to determining and visualizing the consumption data, powerrate allows you to graphically compare and efficiently process data, thanks to its open interfaces and export function. Using predefined Excel macros, energy consumption and costs can be tracked to the originator, enabling you to compare and analyze consumption and costs, and identify potential energy savings.

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Basic functions in SIMATIC PCS 7 and advanced features in SIMATIC powerrate are used to compress data and create transparency of all energy consumption.