Energy Monitoring
The EasyCount solution makes it possible to implement a real-time monitoring system for power consumption measurement.
By mounting one or more power meters on the machine, it is possible to measure the power consumption and voltages and currents of the power supply going into the machine.
The combination of measurements from the power meter and production data from the machine is a very strong tool to calculate electricity usage for the different orders. This can be used to calculate the costs of energy for each production.
With the EasyCount portal you can analyze your electricity usage and get a deeper insight in the power consumption. Here below is an example of the online energy monitoring, where the actual power consumption is registered every minute over a period of 16 hours.
The diagram shows the basic power consumption when the machines is powered on but not producing products (the green line) and the average power consumption when the machine is producing (the red line).
Energy monitoring can help reduce the costs to the electrical power in the factory.
And at the same time reduce the CO2 footprint and make production cleaner.
How to start monitoring ?
The EasyCount energy monitoring solution is easy to install on existing machines. The hardware installation can be made by the local electrician. And the software installation and setup is made in the EasyCount WEB portal.
The solutions setup looks like this:
(1) Current Transformers
The current transformers measure the current running into the machine. The signal from the current transformers is sent into the power meter, where the total electricity usage is calculated.
The current transformers comes in many different sizes. This means that it is possible to measure many different sizes of power consumptions. From smaller machines to complete production lines.
In most machines there are 3 phases. In this picture there are 3 current transformers installed. One for each phase. See the wires (black, brown, gray) going through the transformer.
(2) Power Meter
The power meter reads the signals from the current transformers and calculates the different power values. These signals can be read from the EasyCount devices and sent to the database.
The power meter is a ‘Class 1 to IEC EN 62053-21:2003’ certified unit. This means that power measurements are within a range of 1% accuracy.
The power meter measures the energy going into the machine and send the information to the counter.
(3) Counter
The EasyCount counter has a RS485 connection for reading the data from the power meters.
It is possible to add 16 power meters to the same counter. In this way several power measurements can be made on the same machine or power from several machines can be measured by the same counter.
The EasyCount counter has an interface to retrieve the measurements from the power meter.
When the measurements are received they are sent to the database where they are stored and can be used for further analysis.