As energy costs continue to rise and sustainability becomes imperative, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly looking to IoT energy management solutions to optimize energy usage across their manufacturing and production facilities. By deploying smart sensors and data analytics, OEMs can gain unprecedented visibility into their energy consumption patterns and asset performance to drive significant efficiency improvements in energy-intensive operations.

Enhancing Visibility into Energy Usage with Smart Metering

The starting point for improving energy efficiency is gaining visibility. Traditional manual meter readings provide only periodic snapshots of consumption, lacking the granularity to identify waste or anomalies. Here, smart metering solutions enabled by IoT energy solutions offer tremendous potential.

Smart metering provides actionable data empowering OEMs to:

• Pinpoint the most energy-intensive processes or assets: With a breakdown of energy consumption by operational areas, management can quantify the relative costs of running various equipment and prioritize efficiency initiatives accordingly.

• Contextualize usage with production: Linking energy data to output metrics allows normalization by units produced, revealing energy performance trends over time. Any regression could indicate developing inefficiencies requiring intervention.

• Enforce accountability: Allocating usage data to departments instills energy optimization as a shared responsibility. Periodic reporting motivates teams to identify savings specific to their operations.

• Audit billing: Validating invoiced consumption against metered usage identifies discrepancies for deeper investigation of anomalies. This prevents overpayments, boosting the bottom line.

With the right data, IoT energy management is possible. By enabling continuous centralized monitoring, IoT smart meters provide the foundation for efficiency.

Optimizing Asset Performance through Condition Monitoring

Beyond metering usage, IoT energy solutions further augment visibility into the performance and health of energy-intensive assets. Sensor data reveals insights into the operating conditions and allows remote monitoring of parameters like vibrations, temperatures, pressures, loads, and runtimes. IoT-enabled condition monitoring provides OEMs with several key advantages:

• Identify underperforming assets: Continuously tracking critical parameters enables performance benchmarking across similar equipment. Assets operating outside expected ranges are easily flagged for tuning or maintenance to minimize energy wastage.

• Schedule predictive maintenance: Gradual changes in asset condition data, like increased vibration or heat, can indicate impending failures well before a breakdown. This early warning allows just-in-time maintenance, avoiding costly downtime.

• Verify power quality: Voltage fluctuations, harmonic distortions, and phase imbalances indicate power quality issues stressing electrical assets and wasting energy. IoT sensors allow rapid detection and diagnosis of such problems.

• Remote troubleshooting: With real-time equipment data accessible remotely, technicians can quickly validate issues and recommend adjustments without lengthy on-site visits.

• Validate energy initiatives: Comparing asset performance before and after efficiency upgrades quantifies realized savings and validates the ROI on energy projects.

Armed with condition insights, OEMs can optimize maintenance cycles around actual asset needs rather than following imprecise schedules. This predictive approach prevents premature or unnecessary servicing, cutting costs. The result is leaner operations with assets performing at peak efficiency.

Monitoring Environmental Parameters for Energy Management

Environmental factors within production facilities, such as temperature, humidity, and air quality, significantly impact energy consumption, equipment performance, and working conditions. IoT sensors strategically placed throughout premises provide continuous data on these parameters for optimized environmental regulation.

Smart HVAC Management

Heating and cooling represent up to 40% of energy usage in industrial facilities. IoT sensors coupled with control systems allow granular management of HVAC operation based on fine-grained occupancy and ambient condition data. Motion sensors and indoor air monitoring instantly relay workspace occupancy levels. The HVAC systems then self-adjust, avoiding full operation for unoccupied or low-density areas. Similarly, automated temperature and humidity regulation maintain desired comfort levels without excessive energy use. Operators gain remote oversight to optimize HVAC runtimes and thresholds across the facility or production lines.

Air Quality Monitoring

Industrial sensors can also monitor parameters like particulate matter, carbon emissions, and VOCs, ensuring air purity is maintained for worker health and safety. Detecting deterioration allows timely correction, such as adjusting ventilation rates. Environmental IoT energy solutions provide automation for smart air regulation.

Lighting Management

Integrating occupancy and ambient light data from IoT sensors into a centralized lighting management system allows optimized illumination. Lights ramp down when sufficient natural light is available and dim or switch off when areas become unoccupied. This prevents lighting electricity waste, adjusting consumption to dynamic needs.

Leveraging IoT in energy management for environmental optimization cuts energy waste substantially while sustaining ideal working conditions.

Scaling Insights with IoT Analytics Platforms

The sheer volume of granular data generated by numerous IoT sensors across a large production facility can become overwhelming to analyze manually. Scalable cloud-based IoT analytics platforms help manage the data influx by providing:

• Automated reporting: Customizable dashboards transform IoT data into intuitive graphical reports and trends on energy use, asset health, and environmental performance. Automated reporting removes manual analysis work.

• Advanced analytics: Platforms incorporate AI tools like machine learning, predictive modeling, and prescriptive algorithms to uncover hidden insights within complex IoT data. This augments human analysis capabilities.

• Data sharing: User access controls enable secure, customized data sharing across departments and roles, providing a “single source of truth.” Cross-functional teams gain a shared view, driving collaborative efficiency gains.
• Third-party integrations: Combining related data from other platforms like ERP, MES, and building management systems helps contextualize IoT in energy management data. API connectors simplify data consolidation for holistic analysis.

• Remote monitoring: Mobile access allows managers to monitor all facility operations remotely in real-time. Issues can be rapidly diagnosed and addressed regardless of location.

By leveraging automation and AI within an IoT analytics platform, OEMs can keep pace with exploding sensor data volume to maximize insights and efficiency.

Unlocking Smart Grid Integration for Energy Optimization

The smart electric grid allows two-way communication between energy utilities and consumers with smart metering infrastructure. IoT integration enables OEM facilities to become active participants in the smart grid ecosystem, optimizing their energy supply and demand interactions.

• Real-time pricing: Smart grid integration gives OEMs access to dynamic real-time utility pricing reflecting current demand and supply conditions. IoT analytics correlates energy use to these volatile price signals. Operators can then shift flexible production loads to lower-cost periods, saving energy dollars.

• Demand response integration: As a demand response partner, facilities can reduce power draw during peak demand periods in response to a utility’s live signals. Curtailing consumption during critical grid shortages is rewarded through financial incentives and avoided rate hikes.

• Distributed energy resources: The bi-directional connectivity allows feeding excess renewable energy from on-site generation back to the grid for revenue. IoT data enables optimally leveraging these resources.

• Power factor correction: Smart power monitoring identifies deviations from the optimal power factor. Dynamic grid signals allow IoT-driven control systems to automate real-time power factor correction and avoid penalties.

The result of participating in the smart grid ecosystem is greater energy efficiency, cost savings, reliability, and sustainability for OEM facilities. IoT in energy management enables harnessing the grid as an energy optimization asset.

Summing Up IoT’s Impact on OEM Energy Efficiency

By embracing IoT energy management solutions, OEMs can make big strides in reducing operating costs and environmental footprint through enhanced energy visibility, analytics, and automation.

Whether taking a pilot project approach or full-scale modernization, adopting the right smart technologies promises significant returns through efficiency gains across production areas. For manufacturers seeking competitive advantage, IoT presents a compelling opportunity to build sustainability practices while future-proofing facility performance.

Avigna is an IOT Implementation Partner for Global OEMs. Connect with us at queries@avigna.ai to know how we make a difference in IoT Implementation for OEMs. Join us on LinkedIn.