Open AccessThe Characterisation of Energy Consumption in Manufacturing Facilities – A Hierarchical Approach
Author(s) -
Eoin O’Driscoll,
D. Og Cusack,
Garret E. O’Donnell
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of automation technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1883-8022
pISSN - 1881-7629
DOI - 10.20965/ijat.2013.p0727
Subject(s) - energy consumption , energy accounting , efficient energy use , energy (signal processing) , manufacturing engineering , computer science , transparency (behavior) , manufacturing , industrial engineering , process engineering , reliability engineering , engineering , business , electrical engineering , statistics , mathematics , computer security , marketing
The continuing inflation of energy costs coupled with the imminent implementation of environmental taxes have placed the manufacturing sector under significant pressure to increase energy performance and reduce emissions. In order to alleviate the impact of this energy price rise, more and more research is focusing on the efficient utilisation of energy. In order to quantify the impact of any energy efficient machine tool or facility optimisations it is first necessary to robustly measure, map, and record the initial energy requirements. A hierarchical approach to the quantification and characterisation of electrical energy consumption within manufacturing facilities represents one approach that enables energy efficiency improvements in the manufacturing sector. This research study applies the hierarchical approach in a multinational biomedical device manufacturing facility. A combination of energy measurement devices and systems are used to perform the quantification and characterisation. One objective of this research is to develop absolute energy transparency at each level of the manufacturing facility hierarchy.