Specifications

Green levies, tighter operating margins and profits are
a few economic drivers forcing operators to use more
intelligent power management strategies. Real-time
measurements of electrical parameters, such as voltage
variations or distortions, can be transmitted via
networks to operators, warning of breaches in threshold
limits. And, the power quality information improves on-
site efficiency and eases negotiation with utility
companies and energy authorities. For starters, several
utility meters or power analysers should be located at
the service entrance and at strategic points throughout
the site. Data can be transmitted to a host PC over a
serial link. Meanwhile, an energy management
software improves real-time data from several
networked nodes so to work out a power profile.
Large commercial or industrial electricity consumers
have to deal with fixed energy charges related to the
power demand of one or more sites as well as the charge
per unit of energy consumed. If the business exceed
the agreed power demand or “installed power” then it
is forced to pay extra costs. To make matters worse,
utilities can also impose higher installed power tariffs
that can often represent up to 60% of a commercial
consumer’s total utility charge. So clearly, a small
mistake that leads to a brief excess power demand
can cost many thousands of euro. Carlo Gavazzi
supplies Energy Management systems that provide
information so that operators can identify consumption
trends and take corrective actions. Analysing the power
profile operators can also aggregate loads and so
negotiate more favourable terms with the utility company.
Real time power consumption monitoring also allows a
site manager to anticipate overloads conditions that
would, for example, trip a circuit breaker. Alarm
thresholds can be set to warn managers if preset limits
are reached, and armed with the adequate system
loading and status information having time to organise
remedial actions.
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What are and
Why use the Energy Management Components