IndustrialEnergyManagement

Bruce Billedeaux

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Proper integration topples barriers to successful energy management

Systems that collect, organize, and analyze data from disparate systems provide an accurate picture of energy use, and clues on how to reduce costs.
THE ABILITY TO REACH A GOAL depends on accurately identifying the goal in the rst place. If the goal is energy reduction, the rst step toward achieving it is to determine precisely where the energy is being used. The statement you cant x what you cant measure nds no better application than in energy management. In many process facilities, the utility plant operates independently from the process. Thats because plants were originally designed to run on wood, coal, and oil, which are suited for large central utility plants, not the plant oor. Although most operations have transitioned to natural gas and electricity, facilities are still designed the traditional way. Because of this legacy, the measurements of energy ows and consumption exist in the utility plant or building automation system.

Historical precedent for the lack of systems integration

With the prevalence of automation in modern manufacturing facilities, one often assumes that the equipment needed to measure energy use is already in place, and that the data need only be integrated, stored, and presented for anyone to understand where energy is used and how savings can be achieved. But this is not the case for most facilities. Data integration in particular often proves very dif cult, due to the nature of building and plant design. The purpose of process systems is, quite literally, reliable control of a process. Proper control requires various eld inputs, material ow meters, product counters, vision systems, and so on. Measurement of energy ows, such as compressed air and electricity, is rarely needed to achieve an optimized production process. The measurement of energy input is generally ignored and considered part of the utility umbrella.

Differences between systems for process control and building automation

Its dif cult to integrate process control systems with building automation systems because they have fundamentally different design approaches. The process control system is designed for very high reliability, fast processing, and hardened input and output (I/O). The building automation system is designed to provide the maximum number of I/O at the lowest cost, integrated with low-cost eld devices. From an integration point of view, one can clearly see the division in the communication protocols. The process system is more likely to require specialized equipment from multiple vendors. The value of communication among pieces of equipment is very high, as this is where the money is made. The importance of communication has led to the adoption of speci c vendor Smooth translation: A new genprotocols as de facto standards (such as Modbus) eration of devices translates the and the development of standards (such as OPC) languages of various communicathat permit extensive multi-vendor integration. tions protocols, making it The equipment in central utility plants is the easier for manufacturers same regardless of industry, while building autoto analyze data from mation systems are often extremely specialized. both building control Specialization allows one vendor to provide all and process automathe controls necessary for a central utility plant tion systems to or building. Without the need for multiple vensupport comprehensive energydor integration, vendors tend to select proprietary management programs. communication protocols in an effort to lower Courtesy: Maverick Technologies cost and secure market share. These market forcSUPPLEMENT TO PLANT ENGINEERING

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IndustrialEnergyManagement
Invisible costs: Manufacturers often fail to measure the large amounts of energy consumed by equipment such as air compressors because managing that equipment is not essential to optimizing production processes. Mark Yuill/Shutterstock.com

es have been the primary impediment to integration of process and utility controls for data collection.

Integrating systems with open protocols

In the past decade this issue has been mitigated by the emergence of vendor-independent open protocols such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) BACnet protocol. Building automation vendors have also begun to adopt some industrial protocols such as Modbus and OPC, but legacy systems in existing plants are not likely to use these newer open protocols. To bridge these systems, facilities often use protocol convertersspecialized computers that convert proprietary protocols into industry standards. The converters can be very effective, but, like any specialized or custom system, they can be dif cult to con gure and support. Hardware obsolescence is a particular concern.

Leveraging the historian database

Another way to integrate data from process and utility automation systems is to combine the data from a database or historian. With this approach the measured energy use is not real-time but is derived from periodic reports drawn from each system-speci c historian database. The responsibility for this type of integration falls under the IT domain, which reduces the probability of obsolescence, since most manufacturing facilities have IT support staff.

its not uncommon to realize that the process automation systems do not collect the desired data. As stated earlier, measurement of energy ows is rarely needed to achieve an optimized production process. However, this does not mean the plant oor data is not valuable in determining energy use. There are several accepted methods for estimating energy use based on information such as motor run time and percent of equipment utilization. These methods have been standardized in the International Performance Measurement and Verication Protocol (IPMVP). The protocol originated through efforts to measure energy savings in the building and central utility industries, but the techniques can also be used to effectively estimate equipment energy use from process automation data. Further, this protocol is well established and is accepted by the nancial industry as an acceptable means to prove energy savings. When using process and building automation data to assess energy savings, it is important to keep an eye on the goal: energy reduction. The data from each of these systems and the techniques used in the IPMVP do not provide highly accurate measures of energy or utility use. But highly accurate measures are not required. Of more importance is the relative reduction in energy use after the implementation of an energy reduction measure. Too much effort is spent in many energy reduction projects in trying to achieve exact measures of energy where relative measures will achieve the goal. Simply put, you cant x what you cant measure means it is time to utilize the data available from your process and utility automation systems. Review the current measurement and veri cation protocols, as well as your facilitys I/O list. It is likely that you have what you need to begin an accurate estimation of your facilitys energy use, which will give you the ability to reach your energy management goals. www.mavtechglobal.com

The right process control data

Once all the data is combined for measuring and tracking,
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Bruce Billedeaux, senior consultant with Maverick Technologies, is a licensed professional engineer. He has been involved in institutional and industrial energy optimization for more than 25 years.

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