Shutdown factory - Central control and communication system and overall concept for a reduction of energy cost and optimization of resources during the stand-by-mode of industry facilities

Status

completed

Summary

Energy costs in the stand-by-mode (production downtime; at weekends; at night) are a big factor in enterprises, that might be essentially reduced by specific measures. The requirement for energy in an exemplary automotive factory during production is 54 MW, and during production downtime it is still 9 MW. Thus energy in stand-by is not only a huge expense factor, but also highly relevant for the environmental burden. Experiences of the applicant in projects on energy data management show, that enterprises only marginally are aware of the problem of stand-by costs

Thus our project "Abschaltbare Fabrik" (shutdown factory) manages the problems from three sides: an innovative central control and communication system to shutdown and restart, an entire concept on energy savings and resource optimization in the stand-by mode of industry, and the awareness building in Austrian companies. Therefore this project produces a solution with high market potential, a pilot application, and awareness for energy consumption during production downtime.

The 4 objectives of the project are:

• Objective 1 - create transparency for energy consumption in industry, an entire concept on transparency and resources, an integrated system starting from data collection all through to its analysis
• Objective 2 - standardized tools to reduce energy in industry like machine tools that may be shut down, controls that work without batteries and restart in 30 seconds, and a central control and communication system that shuts down the production facilities and restarts it in time
• Objective 3 - tool set to increase potential savings in industry by sectoral benchmarks and best practice scenarios as well as guidelines
• Objective 4 - awareness building in industry and restricted public groups by establishing working groups and interacting with industrial associations and alike

Results and conclusions

During the project 6 major problem areas have been identified which can be clustered in 2 groups.

Cross functional topics

• Personal behavior
• Lack of information concerning the energy consumption
• Poor production planning (in terms of optimized energy consumption)

Those topics can be improved significantly by more transparency over the energy consumption, because they can be addressed via organizational measures.

The physical topics

• Central auxiliary equipment
• Machine controls
• Office, IT

could be improved by an active energy management. This means systems which allow for example an automated switch on and off of the production areas.

Through this conclusion one major effort for the future activities will be kept on creating transparency with two major principles:

• Energy management is a management task - for this the management needs the right information to make the right decisions.
• A sustainable improvement is only possible when the consumption is measured - measures implemented without measuring lead only to short time improvements and have no sustainable effect.

Project management

Dipl.-Ing. Werner Schöfberger
Siemens AG Österreich

Project collaborator

• Ing. Mag. Gottfried Blumauer
• Ing. Mag. Markus Bachl
• Dipl.-Ing. Rudolf Traxler
• Barbara Petzl
• Ing. Manfred Leutgöb
• Ing. Peter Kolic
• Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Florian Bergthaler
• Ing. Wilfried Bäuchler
• Stefan Aschauer
• Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Harald Grill
• Benjamin Reisinger
• Stefan Preinfalk

Dipl.-Ing. Werner Schöfberger
Siemens AG Österreich
Kraußstraße 1-7
4020 Linz
Tel.: +43 05-1707-61645
E-Mail: werner.schoefberger@siemens.com
Web: www.siemens.at