This
security control relay Wieland Electric consumes less energy than a
standard equivalent component. Samos PRO control relay has a CPU and can
manage 96 safety inputs and 48 safety outputs.
Today, manufacturers attitudes are
changing and their R&D teams are working on this subject. The
low-energy impact intrinsic to the equipment sometimes also becomes a
sales argument.
The European parliament has demanded
that in 2019, the future buildings in the European Union will be “zero
energy”. So every new building in E.U as of 2019 would have to be able
to produce as much energy as it consumes. There are also reflections in
progress for existing buildings. This means that in less than 10 years,
building equipments would have to consume very little energy. The least
energy loss related to panel equipment will have a very different
importance. In the service sector, equipments of automation and
technical management are directly concerned: automats, switches, PC,
sensors etc. Those constraints, applied to building trade should
accelerate manufacturers R&D, with clear impact for industrial
applications, knowing that more and more products are similar from one
sector to the other.
ISO 14001 corresponds to a search of
continuous improvement from the environmental point of view. This method
specifies requirements relating to an environmental management system
that permits the company to develop and implement the policies and
goals, taking into account legal requirements and other requirements
subscribed by the company. This method is applicable to environmental
aspects identified by the company as the ones that can be controlled and
influenced. So, energy savings can be a part of this schema.
For the automat M340, Schneider Electric has initiated an eco-design approach: the automation platform Modicon M340 reduces its energy consumption by 25%. Same progress for the weight and the packaging with a gain of 70%!
Perspectives in industry
An industrial process with an
instantaneous power of many Megawatts hides widely the thousands or tens
of thousands of watts, consumed in the total scale in the factory by
the automation equipments. By the way, the saving is real! You just have
to integrate the kWh in one year to realize the potential for savings.
Otherwise, 1 watt consumed at the equipment level represents much more
at the level of counting the invoices. You just have to look at the
output chain to see it, between the delivery item 20kV of the industrial
site and the panel components, intervene power transformers, circuit
breakers (as an example, a 400 A circuit breaker consumes 200kWh/year!),
inverters and power transformers. In total, almost 1.4W will be really
consumed for 1W at the entry of the equipment, without forgetting the
electro-technical components dimensioning directly related to the
charge. Economies of scale can be considered on the circuit breaker
caliber, on the power of an inverter or of a transformer. In fact, as a
whole chain we have to study it to realize the possible energy
potential. In the service sector or housing environment, the stake is
higher because consumptions are more analyzed and energy regulations are
always stricter. Added to this is the awarding of energy labels (BBC,
Passivhous, Minergie …) or the application of steps such as HQE (High
Environmental Quality).
Using
quality components or a specific conception permits Elka’s supplies to
obtain better output than classical supplies. Supply does not undergo
overheating at rated power anymore, hence an energy gain and a slower
ageing of the equipment. They deliver a 12 or 24V power that can be used
for low-current applications
Though microprocessors of automation
equipment are doing impressive progress in the field of energy
consumption, supplies used to lower voltage from 230V to 12V or 24V
often still show mediocre performance! Besides all the efforts made,
classical supply keeps stagnating with an output of 80%. The rest goes
into heat. For example, for a 500W supply, 100W participates in the
warming of the cabinet or of the housing. We have to manage with that.
As such, a choice of energy-efficient equipment and automation avoids
sometimes to cool or even to ventilate a cabinet prone to overheating.
This results in investment savings and particularly operating costs.
Increasing the decentralization of
intelligence and treatment, the components and others sources of
consumption have multiplied. This trend is pernicious from the point of
view of energy, because the less the component consumes, the less the
buyer turns his attention on the energy efficiency of the product: “100W
won’t make a big difference”. In fact it will! When a component is used
in 200 copies in the factory, it represents a difference of 20 000W.
For a process working 2x8h 365 days a year, it represents 164 kWh: that
is more or less 13k€ of potential savings in one year. It is obvious
that we don’t change a controller or a switch for energy reasons. But
when we have to replace it, why don’t we consider this question?
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