Energy monitoring and condition monitoring: sustainable operating cost savings and increasing production capacities

With the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops in February 2022, fears of a lack of security of supply increased in Europe and with it energy prices, particularly for gas, oil and electricity. However, the situation eased over the course of the year as a result of the shift in procurement markets, which had previously prioritized gas in particular, partly due to political measures, the accelerated construction of LNG terminals and a mild winter in 2022/23. Although energy prices no longer rose as exorbitantly as at the beginning of the crisis, they remained extremely volatile and at a comparatively high level.
Since February 2022, energy efficiency has been a particularly high priority for German companies. However, even before the crisis, attention was already focused on the complex issue of energy costs in connection with more sustainable production.

However, sustainable energy cost savings are generally only possible if the causes of unnecessarily high consumption are known. If this prerequisite is met, the challenge of collecting and analyzing the relevant data still remains. However, anyone who thinks that noticeable energy savings are directly linked to high investments in the necessary infrastructure for energy monitoring is wrong, as this white paper will show.

What applies to efficient energy monitoring is also perfectly justified with regard to end-to-end condition monitoring. This is because the measurement data available from machines, systems and processes via the use of specific sensor solutions can be used to reduce spare parts costs in the sense of predictive and thus condition-based maintenance and, via this, sustainably increase the availability of machines and systems and thus important production capacities.

The first part of this white paper describes how efficient energy monitoring can be implemented easily, quickly and, above all, without high initial investments and follow-up costs. The white paper also deals with the topic of condition monitoring and shows how a consistent and extremely economical condition monitoring system (CMS) can be set up on the basis of the gateways used as network nodes for energy monitoring and subsequently expanded as required.

Finally, an application example is used to show the potential that can be leveraged through targeted energy monitoring with regard to significant cost savings in compressed air consumption.