Real-Time Energy Consumption Analysis Architecture
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current industrial energy consumption management systems lack the ability to measure energy consumption against production volumes, leading to inefficient scheduling decisions and increased costs, as they primarily focus on facility-level energy data without granular insights into production output impacts.
Innovation Solution
An industrial control architecture that facilitates real-time analysis and reporting of energy consumption data at the process level, correlating energy usage with production output, and enabling dynamic updates to automation processes based on energy consumption and environmental factors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If energy monitoring is done at the facility level, then infrastructure energy management is achieved, but production-level energy consumption measurement is impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments energy monitoring from facility-level to production-line-level and device-level. Energy management functions are divided into separate modular components that can be independently deployed at different hierarchical levels, enabling precise measurement without requiring a complete complex system overhaul.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an energy management server as an intermediary component that collects data from production control systems and utilities, performs analysis, and provides recommendations. This intermediary layer enables sophisticated energy measurement and analysis without directly complicating the existing production control infrastructure.
2Productivity
If fixed energy cost allocations are used, then accounting simplicity is maintained, but production efficiency optimization is prevented
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback loops where energy consumption data from production processes is continuously collected, analyzed, and used to generate recommendations for optimization. This feedback mechanism enables dynamic adjustment of production parameters to improve energy efficiency and productivity without requiring complete system redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual fixed cost allocation methods with automated energy management systems that use software-based data collection, analysis, and reporting. This substitution eliminates the need for complex manual tracking while enabling sophisticated energy-performance optimization through computational analysis.
3Loss of time
If real-time energy consumption data is collected at production level, then scheduling decisions can be optimized, but data acquisition complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring energy measurement points at production lines and devices, establishing data collection infrastructure in advance. This allows real-time energy consumption data to be automatically captured and made available for scheduling decisions without requiring complex real-time setup or manual data gathering.
Data Source
AI summary
The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can facilitate analysis, processing, or reporting in connection with energy consumption data and/or emissions or sustainability factors associated with an automation process. In particular, the architecture can obtain process-level or machine- or device-level energy consumption data collected during execution of an automation process. The data can be analyzed or processed, with general or application-specific results output to a specified recipient and/or formatted (e.g., parsed, filtered, or transformed) according to a general or application-specific scheme.