ROCKWELL Automation says its new portfolio of “Smart Grid” manufacturing solutions can help manufacturers save up to 10% of their electrical costs.
The company says the new sustainable manufacturing portfolio includes a series of plant-wide energy optimisation tools that create an integrated industrial energy management system based on Rockwell Automation industrial automation and information technology.
The products will allow manufacturers to perform real-time load-balancing of their industrial processes, bring renewable energy sources online and execute demand response strategies connected to the Smart Grid.
According to Rockwell Automation, the products take advantage of the increasing connections between plant floor, enterprise, supply chain and customer. Using existing industrial automation and information technology with these new advances, manufacturers can view, control and optimize plant-wide energy use.
The solutions will also allow factories to know the role energy plays in their production costs and the impacts on the bottom line. Manufacturers can begin to capture actual energy use and add it to their bill of materials and other production records.
By combining the Overall Equipment Effectiveness key performance indicator with an energy model, the solutions can create an energy blueprint to develop a long-term strategy for smarter energy use.
Rockwell Automation says its solution portfolio can also provide insight into the energy consumption of individual machines and production lines, allowing optimisation.