Energy saving: Current technological solutions

Rising electricity prices for industrial enterprises make companies look for the most effective ways to reduce costs. Major players are considering the possibility of switching to their own power generation. For many, development and implementation of an energy saving program becomes a matter of survival in the market.

The share of gas and electricity costs of enterprises in the production costs of various industries and agriculture varies greatly. In any case, the task of reducing costs remains relevant to the vast majority of large and medium-sized companies in our country. So far, Russian companies have been wasting about the same amount of electricity as a small European country.

As a result, the adjustment of the energy management system saves up to 15% of electricity costs without a global network overhaul and without implementing complex technological solutions.

Business is looking for a way out.

The increase in the cost of electricity for industry in Russia is not going to slow down despite the surplus of installed capacity.

The industry sees the root of evil in non-market factors such as payments for capacity contracts and cross-subsidies. In the USSR, tariffs for the population were one and a half or two times higher than the prices for enterprises. Today the dependence is the opposite: prices for industrialists are 41% higher, which contradicts economic logic.

In order to abolish cross-subsidization, it would be necessary to increase tariffs for domestic consumers twice as much. Even if we try to achieve parity under the “inflation plus” scheme for the population, and for industry – “inflation minus”, it will take at least 12 years.

In such unfavorable conditions for industrial enterprises, some companies call on the regulator to help. For example, Soyuzmoloko suggests setting preferential tariffs for electricity for agricultural producers and processors. After all, most companies in the industry work at low voltage, and the lower the voltage level, the more expensive is the kilowatt.

Energy saving program entry points

Once again, it all rests on the fact that each company will have to solve the task of reducing energy costs independently, due to its capabilities and competence. Alternatively, some consumers may leave the energy market to take up their own generation.

Today, up to 6 % of the capacity of the entire energy system consists of distributed generation and this can increase in the future. No large enterprise will be able to completely close the need to buy electricity from suppliers in the foreseeable historical perspective.

The most profitable and reliable way to reduce costs remains to improve energy efficiency on the consumer side. And it’s not even a question of “global” things, such as replacing an outdated equipment fleet with a modern one and installing sensors, sensors and network switches to optimize its operation. Simply replacing incandescent and mercury lamps with LED or old control station panels with new ones can produce impressive results.

It is more reasonable to start the movement to improve energy efficiency of enterprise networks with energy audits. This is not necessarily a long, costly and time-consuming process. In the conditions of operating production any delays and downtimes lead to multi-million losses.

The whole procedure, including visual inspection, data collection, search for problem points, development of recommendations, does not take much time and can be carried out in the planned shutdown repair. Energy and resource consumption parameters can be obtained directly from the supplier or by examining the accounting records. The production scheme can be drawn up from available sources.

Enterprises are in any case copying a considerable amount of information to reduce both the time and cost of energy audits, but without this key stage, the haphazard improvement of energy efficiency throughout the whole process can lead to increased costs and deterioration of business indicators instead of the expected positive result.

Energy Automation

There are a number of modern technological solutions on the market that allow to effectively reduce energy costs for industrial companies. They can be successfully integrated into production process automation projects.

The potential for savings is clear. Power and energy recorders are available for optimal distribution of the grid load. These are fairly compact and lightweight electronic devices that can be installed without the need to power down production and are remotely accessible via Bluetooth or LAN.

Automatic energy management combined with “Internet of Things” technologies can work real wonders. For example, automatic adjustment of the building’s energy consumption, lighting and temperature according to the presence of people and environmental conditions.

Automation of the transition of devices that are completely disconnected from the power grid to standby mode. Generation of power consumption templates for different equipment and devices, including automatic adjustment of motor drives depending on the load. Time optimization, say, charging the batteries during the night, at the most efficient time.

Simple use of motion sensors connected to lighting systems can give up to 17% energy savings! And now we are developing new technologies based on artificial intelligence, which should allow automated systems to use seemingly human properties such as visual perception, understanding and communication among themselves, and most importantly, adaptation to constantly changing situations and making complex decisions.