In the past, many efforts were made to conserve energy in factories and save money. To do this, factory managers:
- Limited air conditioning
- Used motion-sensitive bulbs
- Reduced the working hours
These methods did not produce the intended results as they compromised productivity. However, the introduction of IoT has created positive outcomes and resulted in high energy savings.
What Are the Current Challenges with Electrical Energy Billing?
There are two facets of electrical energy billing: consumption and demand charges. Electricity providers offer demand load as the standard peak load to commercial setups. Crossing this will result in hefty penalties for the factories. Thus, factory owners can either decrease their overall energy load or make sure that their factories never reach the threshold limit.
The Motor Conundrum
HVAC systems and electric motors are the two leading resources that take up most of the electricity. Usually, electric motors can run between 50% and 100% of the rated load, and they achieve maximum efficiency at around 75%. However, if it goes lower than 50%, then the motor efficiency is affected.
Often, motors are under-loaded, operating at around 30-40% of their capacity or overloaded, causing overheating. Both cases create worrying spikes in energy consumption. Also, factories often end up with oversized motors that are not only expensive purchases but also cost a lot in maintenance and repair. On the other hand, small motor engines struggle with performance issues.
IoT for Energy Consumption in Factories
Before the IoT, factories used a conventional energy management system. They collected a sample of energy usage for specific intervals. Although it fetched energy-consumption information, it did not provide much assistance with forecasting the seasonal demand, curating usage patterns, or recommending suitable configuration.
IoT allows executing real-time data analysis for the motor. With it in the equation, you can predict usage patterns and energy demand, receive real-time alerts, and identify methods for energy consumption.
A leading IoT solution provider like Tantiv4 can allow you to get the right size for your motors, saving on expenditures. IoT will make sure that the motor engines do not have to exceed its threshold limit. In this way, you can increase the lifespan of your motor and reduce the possibility of failures.
Similarly, an IoT-powered solution can generate warnings when a temperature or motor vibration issue is detected. You can prevent unplanned production outages with conditioning monitoring.
Lastly, an IoT system can use smart meters to monitor the energy consumption in your smart factory at different distribution points. As a result, you can peek into energy consumption from the consumption to point to its source. This can be useful to identify voltage drops at nodes and prevent leakages.
Other than motors, IoT can help you tackle issues in other energy resources such as backup generations, boilers, and air compressors. Lately, factories managers are also utilizing it to optimize their fuel usage.
The use cases for factories opting out for IoT implementation are many, reach out to Tantiv4 for detailed analysis and recommendations.