The Role Of IoT In Saving Energy For Smart Factories

The industrial sector is responsible for more than half (54%) of the world’s total energy consumption. The factories, manufacturing units, and development processes are energy-intensive. There is a need for smart and advanced technology that enables significant energy savings in factories and the industrial sector.

Ensuring energy conservation in factories demands a lot of effort, time, and investment. However, the implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) can ease things. Smart technology has already touched various aspects of our personal and professional lives. Now, it has made its way to the manufacturing sector, allowing experts to view it as a next-generation solution. IoT has the power to help factories to cut overall energy consumption and costs.

Current challenges that factories face today

Factories need to be up in their game to maintain the operational efficiency of production units. However, ensuring this aspect becomes challenging when energy starts fluctuating. There are two aspects of electrical energy billing: consumption and demand charges.

Electricity providers offer demand load according to the standard peak load for commercial setups. If the factories cross this limit, they have to pay hefty penalties. Keeping this point in consideration, factory owners either have to decrease their overall energy load or make sure that their factories never reach the prescribed limit. Also, they often end up with oversized motors that are expensive and demand a lot of maintenance and repair. On the other hand, the small engines fail to perform as per the standards.

How do industries try to overcome the setbacks present in their factories?

Efforts were made by the factory owners to ensure energy savings and reduce the overall costs of operation. Some of them even reduced the working hours in factories to minimize the overall energy consumption. These generous efforts were a part of a conventional energy management system that did not lead to the intended results as they lowered the productivity of the factories. Also, they did not provide much assistance with forecasting the seasonal demand of energy, curating usage patterns, or recommending suitable configurations.

The introduction of IoT has changed the whole scenario. The powerful technology has created positive outcomes and resulted in high energy savings.

The power of IoT: A benefit for factories

According to the experts, IoT-based real-time monitoring systems lead to optimum consumption of energy. It allows facility managers to make better predictions of overall energy usage and implement the right road level energy equipment.

With IoT-based conditional monitoring, factory owners can make sure the motor never reaches its threshold limit, lasts longer, and suffers fewer failures. How? It gives early warnings of electric motor vibration/temperature problems that save time from unplanned production outages. In this way, the unnecessary load of carrying out urgent equipment repairs can be avoided.

At the production level of energy, smart grid sensors help in improving utility operations and performance by efficiently monitoring the energy network. As a result, resources are allocated precisely and closer to the actual demand needs, reducing energy waste. At the consumption level, smart meters provide a wealth of information that helps facility managers to minimize energy costs.

IoT has the power to optimize the consumption of energy at all stages. During the peak hours of operation, it reduces the electricity consumption by shutting down/reducing the consumption of particular equipment. Complex equipment of factories like HVAC, air compressors, boilers, backup generators, or batteries can be improved depending on the operational conditions or outside temperature.

By leveraging device connectivity and energy analytics, manufacturers can track the energy consumption patterns at the device level and get granular visibility into overall energy usage. Based on this valuable information, they can get an actionable insight into energy waste or efficiencies and take corrective steps to rectify them as soon as possible.

Smart factories are greatly influenced by IoT

The implementation of IoT does not just ensure energy savings but also positively impacts the production efficiency of factory units. The modern industrial segments are greatly influenced by IoT technology. It offers real-time alerts, gives the ability to predict energy demand, analyze usage patterns, tackle unplanned equipment downtime, know the fuel requirements, and optimize energy consumption.

A well-designed IoT system installed in a smart factory can track the energy consumption at distributed points and predict leakages or voltage drops at nodes. The data collected from dozens or hundreds of sensors are communicated to the computers for analyzing and monitoring: which equipment will consume higher power, temperature, and space.

Want to ensure optimal energy management in your factory? Connect with Zenatix!

Smart factories rely on efficient energy management solutions to optimize the growing consumption of energy. Turn your factory into a smart one and achieve the optimal level of energy usage with our powerful IoT solutions. Reach out to us for a detailed analysis of your facility and get the much-needed recommendations.