Energy saving is one of the hottest topics of the moment. Following the Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising electricity prices forced companies to implement strategies to cut consumption. This has accelerated the transition to efficient energy management solutions, supported by government initiatives such as the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Here are the main technologies for industrial energy efficiency to date.
Efficient energy management in industry
Today, investing in industrial energy efficiency has several objectives, from reducing production costs to limiting the environmental impact of manufacturing and ensuring the competitiveness of companies on the market. Likewise, there are several solutions to perform efficient energy management.
The pillars of industrial energy management have always been measurement, monitoring, evaluation, and control of energy consumption in production. The goal being to use smaller amounts of energy while maintaining the same quality, cost, and punctuality requirements. In Industry 4.0, the role of EM becomes to monitor energy systems, provide decisions based on energy data and optimize energy consumption independently.
For this to be possible, generation 4.0 solutions are required, which are based on IoT, AI and Big Data technologies according to the principles of Industry 4.0.
ESA solutions for energy efficiency 4.0
Among the enabling technologies for industrial energy efficiency, the implementation of an autonomous monitoring and control system is the most effective and accessible.
This is the purpose of the ESA line of energy management and smart meters. Based on the principles of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things, it includes devices designed to perform a continuous diagnosis of the energy consumption (and not only) of the production plant to ensure its long-term sustainability. In addition, they also allow you to check the correct operation of the system, identifying any consumption peaks or waste.
Energy efficiency in the industrial sector can be achieved through different types of investments. In fact, the ESA energy management system integrates both hardware and software components. In particular:
- Energyaware software, an integrated remote monitoring and control system for smart meter networks and other devices.
- EW800 Distributed Meter (DEM), which can be installed directly on machinery to collect consumption data. This information is then transmitted and logged through ESA’s Data Manager, together with other important data also detected by third-party smart meters, such as gas meters or water meters.
These solutions, supported by a Cloud service, guarantee the circulation of energy consumption data, so that companies can access them at any time.