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On the road to the green factory: PROFIenergy
Refrigerators, washing machines, homes, and soon factories as well – energy efficiency is playing an increasingly critical role in every area of modern life. Energy-saving measures and economic benefits go hand in hand, especially in the industrial environment. It is important, however, that the energy-efficiency measures themselves can be implemented in an economical way. It is for this reason that the automation initiative of German automobile manufacturers (AIDA) asked PNO to provide functions and mechanisms for PROFINET that support energy-efficient production. This power-saving profile is currently being developed under the name PROFIenergy.
Visions become reality: environmental and climate protection is an inherent part of today’s business process planning and optimization strategies.
Dynamic energy management
PROFINET’s marketing work group has already defined use cases and requirements from the user’s perspective. These form the basis of the definition of specifications, which the group began working on in February 2009. The first release of the power-saving profile will be available on the market by the end of 2009 and will meet all the major requirements known to date.
PROFIenergy will enable dynamic energy management. The profile will define various energy-saving modes for the devices. The energy-saving profile will enable simple, standardized addressing of device energy-saving modes and an evaluation of their feedback. This will make it easy for plant control systems to enable optimum energy utilization during productive and nonproductive times of different durations. The aim is to manage energy consumption without impeding the production process.
Savings at the push of a button
PROFIenergy will enable defined energy-saving conditions to be triggered centrally. The resulting opportunities for saving energy are huge. For example, a typical body-shop line in the automotive industry consumes around 80 kilowatts during normal operation. The installed systems continue to consume 20 kilowatts even when the line is not in operation. Reducing 20 kilowatts of “unproductive consumption” by means of appropriate energy management will soon add up to enormous savings. Significant reductions in power consumption can also be achieved during production by deactivating specific components that do not need to be operating all the time – for instance, lasers. If a laser is used every two minutes and is switched to standby for just 30 seconds between each application, it will save a considerable amount of energy over time and across the number of devices, and will reduce associated costs.
The elaborate engineering required for energy-saving functions must often be carried out specifically for each device, which, to date, has been a major obstacle for the implementation of energy-saving measures. This will no longer be the case in the future, thanks to the PROFIenergy profile.