Power Management In Foundries

Managing power consumption in Foundries to reduce electricity costs requires 3 specific capabilities. First you need to have access to electricity consumption data on a real time basis. This means that your electricity meter will need to be equipped to communicate over your local area network in order to send electrical power consumption data to a computer.  Many installed electricity meters are capable of communicating in this manner, however if you have an older electricity meter that doesn’t have this capability, you may need to either update your utility meter or install a duplicate (check) meter that is capable of communications.
 
The second thing you need in order to manage your electricity use is the right power management software.  Software for this purpose must be capable of retrieving the data from the utility meter via the local area network on a minute by minute basis and then presenting the data in a way that is easy to view and actionable.  By actionable we mean that the data is presented in relation to specific targets or cost reduction goals that you wish to achieve.  In some cases the target or goal may be a capped peak demand level that you don’t want to exceed during on peak periods. In other cases there may be other utility or market operator incentive programs that determine your targets.  For example you may wish to reduce load to meet the requirement of a demand response initiative or based on the actual price of electricity for any given time period.  It’s important that the software you choose allows for a multitude of curtailment scenarios to ensure that it meets your needs both today and in the future.

In order to ensure your meeting your cost reduction goals, it’s also important that any power management software you choose is capable of producing the types of reports you require. These reports may include load profiles, peak demand analysis, electricity costs over time, demand response compliancy reports, verification of electricity bills and perhaps even the analysis of costs by department, production line or furnace.  Production managers may want to see reports that are more operational in nature whereas the company controller will be more interested in cost reporting and potential savings opportunities.
 
The third thing you’ll need in order to achieve your electricity savings goals is the ability to curtail load when it’s economically advantageous to do so. 

This means you’ll need access to real time electricity pricing information, electricity metering data and a way to reduce load on the equipment you have chosen to include in your load management strategy.

 Some software has the capability to predict in real time when demand levels will exceed specified targets and then reduce the load on selected equipment to ensure that the demand doesn’t exceed the demand target.  Automatic load control is also an important capability for those who are participating in demand response or dispatch programs, or are responding to excessive electricity prices.  It’s important that the software you use to manage your power consumption be flexible and able to handle a variety of curtailment activation requirements. 
​

There are a wide variety of ways to interface the power management software to the equipment you wish to control. In many cases the software is interfaced to existing PLCs or DCS equipment in order to let these controllers know when and how much curtailment is required at any given time. It is then up to the logic within the PLC or DCS to determine what can be controlled based on what is going on with the production process or furnace melt cycles.  Another way to pass information to existing control systems is interface the power management software to an existing Pi or SQL database and pass the required control information to those third party databases, which are then read by the control system.  Lastly, it is sometimes necessary to install digital or analog I/O in order to pass curtailment signals to specific equipment or induction furnaces.  Most foundries we’ve worked with have designed their curtailment strategy so that each furnace’s load is reduced in stages, beginning with relatively small load reduction, but then getting more aggressive should the software determine than more curtailment is required in order to meet the targets and goals that have been configured in the system.
​

​It should be noted that this is an “in house” system that stores the power consumption data in a local database rather than a remote data cloud.  Access to reports and real time information is also provided via the LAN as apposed to via the Internet.  This keeps your data and production information securely behind your firewall.
 
Since power management is a 24/7 activity, system reliability is also important. That’s why we’ve built in self diagnostic features that are able to notify the right people should any technical issues arise with data collection/storage or demand curtailment processes.
 
The results for our foundry customers over the years has typically been 25%-30% savings, however since deregulation of most electricity markets and the creation of market specific incentive programs in many cases the savings achieved have been significantly higher as the software has helped these companies take advantage of incentive programs which optimizing power consumption vs production.
 
We have been successful implementing power management software with a wide variety of electrical melting equipment including induction furnaces, arc furnaces and heat treating equipment.