We’re excited to be part of the March 20th IntegrateLive! Webinar together with the amazing team at Opto22: Unlocking the Power of Energy Monitoring!

This webinar has two parts—the first will detail the Opto 22 groov RIO Energy Monitoring Unit (EMU) and how it is an advanced energy monitoring platform out of the box. The second part will focus on the Ignition resources we have developed to make the EMU plug and play with Ignition. If you watched the webinar and want to download the resource from the Ignition Exchange, here is the link!

If you missed the webinar and want to see what we are talking about, check out the video below:

Energy Monitoring for Everyone!

Prior to the release of the groov RIO EMU, it was possible—but not necessarily easy—to collect energy monitoring data. Typically, you would need to upgrade relevant power meters to smart meters so that they would be capable of sending data to other systems. Then you would need to manage complex Modbus or DNP 3 communication stacks to access the data, along with a fair amount of additional work to calculate the relevant readings for monitoring power consumption. Now, the Opto22 groov RIO can handle all of this for you with the right functionality right out of the box. You’ll get the most useful information along with a fully programmable backend to manage and control equipment, interact with other devices, and send all of the relevant data where it needs to go.

Since we’ve focused on Ignition since the beginning at Corso Systems and have had a great experience as an Opto 22 Partner over the years, choosing the powerful groov RIO EMU was a no-brainer. And we knew we wanted to build out some additional tools in Ignition to make it easy to adopt this technology. In our experience, using Opto 22 hardware (especially in the Heat Treatment industry) provides a fast ROI. This hardware’s powerful energy monitoring functionality can track and manage one of the largest cost centers for heat treatment companies. They can then take action to streamline costs and improve operations with minimal up front investment compared to legacy energy monitoring technology options.

Stay Ahead of Preventative Maintenance

We have a lot of experience helping utility companies and large-scale manufacturing companies who want to track their energy and utility use with data integrated into their process management systems. This approach includes raw data comparisons such as determining how much natural gas is consumed during a Heat Treatment Process to calculate a direct cost per batch for the natural gas. It can also be used to track when process equipment consumes power to help minimize equipment startup during more expensive peak load times. You can even directly connect to power meters and other instrumentation for real-time energy usage readings.

Similar to vibration monitoring systems which track when motor bearings and other equipment may need maintenance, energy monitoring can track when other process equipment may need maintenance or repair. This can be as simple as tracking the current draw of a motor over time and adding an alarm if it deviates from expected tolerances and needs repair. It could be as complex as looking at overall energy usage for an entire production line combined with process control parameters to see if things like conveyor systems need tuning, process piping needs cleaned, or blowers/filtration systems need repair due to increased load on the system.

Advanced Energy Management Impacts

Energy monitoring can also help you understand how your process control system impacts your overall energy usage. This isn’t just about having equipment on or off, or managing what time of day you are running, energy monitoring with the Opto22 groovRIO EMU and Ignition will give you the details of how your process operates and how you can improve PID loop tuning and more to reduce your overall energy consumption.

Every time a valve opens, closes (or changes position in the case of an analog control valve) it uses power. A poorly tuned control loop that makes valves constantly cycle in part or all of your process can have a huge direct impact on your energy costs. You might not realize how much these costs add up when you’re mostly focused on product quality and process operations where everything might look great. But, monitoring the frequency of valve position changes in the context of energy usage will give you a different perspective.

One extreme example we observed was a company that had a few dozen valves on a process water manifold that were changing position an average of 10,000 times per day with their existing tuning parameters. After studying the overall energy costs with their setup for a month, we discovered that these valves were using a lot of energy in that part of the process. After examining the process requirements, it was clear that the valves were tuned “well enough” to supply process water where it needed to go, but were not operating optimally. By re-tuning the valves to a much less reactive mode, they were able to reduce the overall movements on average to about 1,000 per day across the bank of valves. After this change and the energy cost data over the next three months, the company was able to save $150,000 in electricity costs per year compared to previous conditions.

Wrapping Up

While energy monitoring might not be the most interesting topic in manufacturing, it is one of the most important since it impacts every manufacturing company on the planet.

Optimizing operations, improving process controls, and managing energy usage all directly impact the bottom line of any manufacturing operation. The first step in understanding how these costs impact your business is to track the energy you are using.

While the groov RIO EMU is focused on electrical loads, it is also important to consider steam, compressed air, natural gas, and process water as you move deeper into your energy monitoring journey. Register for the webinar to learn more!

Ready to optimize your operations with Energy Monitoring now?

Corso Systems can help!

Schedule a short intro call with Cody Johnson in Sales to get started today or contact us with your project details.