ANSWERS
WIRELESS II O T SENSORS Mike McClurg, Load Controls Inc.
IIoT, pump energy efficiency Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) implementation uses pump power measurements to save energy, with sensors enabled by a wireless gateway and cloudbased analytics. See eight project guidelines for a secure, easy application.
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he economics of improving pump energy consumption are compelling, and a case study shows how significant savings can be achieved. More than $250 billion is spent annually to power the world’s industrial pumps; another $100 billion is spent maintaining pumps to keep them running and improve efficiency. It’s not uncommon for a process manufacturer to spend upwards of 25% of an operating budget on power to keep pumps spinning. Even so, industry solutions to address pump power consumption focus on new pump purchases. The goal for this project was to develop an architecture that bridges the gap between currentlyinstalled environments for pumps and sensors and the emerging world of cloud-based machine learning. The solution enables long-term pump energy consumption data to be stored and analyzed, allowing decisions on pump efficiency, sizing, maintenance and replacements made from factual historical information.
8 project guidelines
A few guidelines provided direction to the technologies chosen for implementation, including wanting to: 1. Create a cloud-based digital representation of pump status, energy conKEYWORDS: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), pump analytics sumption and workload. IIoT project uses wireless 2. Leverage state-of-the-art visualizacommunications and sensors to tion and analytics tools, without the need analyze pump energy use. to implement these locally. Energy maintenance savings 3. Have the ability to spin up and are among expected results. down test environments as well as to Process manufacturers with retain data for long periods. many pumps could benefit from pursuing a similar project. 4. Work in today’s world (hands-off, remote monitoring, without a disruptive CONSIDER THIS installation). Given COVID-19 induced How many pumps should be restrictions manufacturers need a remote supplying energy information and aren’t? monitoring solution that doesn’t require extensive on-site staffing for implemenONLINE tation, monitoring and maintenance. The If reading from the digital solution had to be simple to install and edition, click on the headline for more resources. require no local staffing afterward. www.controleng.com/magazine 5. Avoid new sensors or proprietary www.thethingsnetwork.org software, leveraging existing sensors prev-
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control engineering
alent in the processing industry and avoid proprietary solutions that would provide vendor lock-in. 6. Avoid wireless and power assumptions, such as availability of Wi-Fi on the factory floor, a low noise environment, or 120 V power. Many manufacturing environments are large, noisy and may lack reliable Wi-Fi capability. Most control environments don’t have 120 V power outlets. 7. Avoid messing with the manufacturing execution system (MES), programmable logic controller (PLC), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system or information technology (IT) resources. 8. Make the project secure and simple. That means having the data and control flow from the measured pumps without a mechanism to control or influence the process. By keeping this data flow in one direction, there’s no ability to alter the manufacturing process. Similarly, attaching non-disruptively to the sensor network eliminates the need for software changes, time consuming data dumps, or IT support for data acquisition. Measuring pump motor power provides an accurate view of energy consumption. While this is great for instantaneous control of a pump (shutting off a pump in error conditions such as dry-running, cavitation or mechanical failure), it’s also valuable information when tracked over time. Longer-term analysis of power data can indicate increases that signal: • Increased workloads • Need for potential maintenance, including alignment and lubrication. • Under-sizing. Similarly, decreasing levels of power could indicate potential oversizing of motors/pumps, or changes in the pumping process that need to be addressed. Output from the power sensor is a 4 to 20 mA analog signal corresponding to instantaneous power. The implementation attached a simple temperature probe to the pump motor. The temperature sensor also provides a scaled 4 to 20 mA analog signal. This thermocouple/transmitter was attached to the motor via a small metal strap. www.controleng.com
