Advantech's iEMS solution helps the industry to green management

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Advantech's smart energy management solution "iEMS" helps enterprises quickly deploy smart energy management systems at the lowest cost with high practicability and scalability, fully grasp the overall energy usage status of enterprises, and quickly expand system functions according to future needs, so as to achieve the ESG goals pursued by enterprises in a sustainable manner.

According to the United Nations, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by at least 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels to meet the long-term climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement. To this end, many countries and organizations have launched carbon neutrality initiatives to help individuals, businesses, and countries reduce their carbon footprint and achieve net-zero emissions.

The purpose of deploying smart energy management systems is no longer just to reduce energy costs, but also to integrate into the global green supply chain, reflect the company's pursuit of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG), and demonstrate the company's commitment to net zero emissions.

To keep up with the global trends of net-zero emissions, low-carbon production and smart low-carbon buildings, companies must implement a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory. Advantech's iEMS solution based on Advantech's Industrial Cloud can help industries easily check greenhouse gas emissions, such as counting and analyzing the emissions that need to be eliminated during the important steps of carbon neutrality.

iEMS is a highly practical and scalable solution that not only helps enterprises to deploy smart energy management systems cost-effectively, but also is highly scalable to meet the needs of more smart applications in the future.

A functional, flexible and scalable smart energy management system

In recent years, there has been a growing demand for smart energy management solutions, including hospitals, hypermarkets, large retailers, universities, data centers, commercial buildings, factories and industrial estates, to reduce energy consumption and save electricity costs.

However, despite the fact that these scenarios have been introduced into the energy system and can save about 10% of electricity costs on average, it is still difficult for companies to determine the total CO2 emissions of all facilities when conducting a greenhouse gas inventory. This is because many sites are deployed in a decentralized manner with multiple subsystems, and the subsystems do not have built-in GHG equivalency calculators, making it difficult for system managers to obtain useful information with in-depth business insights through big data analysis, and therefore unable to implement predictive maintenance measures.

When deploying iEMS, it is often impossible to predict the organizational changes that may occur in the next 5 to 10 years, so a flexible and highly scalable platform and system architecture is required. In this regard, unlike the closed environment of the data acquisition and monitoring system (SCADA), the WISE-PaaS platform with microservice architecture provides a flexible and scalable development environment, which can help enterprises quickly tap the value of data and develop relatively intelligent applications in the future according to the needs of the field.

In addition, unlike other energy management solutions, Advantech's iEMS is based on the WISE-PaaS open framework and provides three basic application framework services: visualization, digital twin, and AI modeling. Specifically, the iEMS system receives data from IT and OT devices such as sensors, controllers, PLCs, and IPCs, and then digitizes the data from various devices using digital twin technology. If the application environment has AI analysis needs, the accumulated data collected over a long period of time can be used as a data source for AI modeling deployment at the edge. In other words, the logic of the entire system architecture is based on the data platform to create a variety of microservices such as real-time energy consumption monitoring, energy consumption statistical analysis, equipment diagnosis, and energy efficiency optimization.

Unlike traditional siloed energy management systems, Advantech's iEMS solution provides customers with a unified and scalable management platform that allows customers to easily onboard new sites based on their application needs for effective end-loop management. In this way, the imported scenario can adjust the operation strategy in real time based on the real-time energy consumption results, for example, if the system detects excessive energy use in the entire site, it can try to find out the cause and provide managers with suggestions to improve and optimize the operation.

Intelligent energy management system to meet the needs of multiple application scenarios

The main motivation for the introduction of iEMS in factories and industrial parks is usually to achieve smart energy and facility management, as well as to deploy Industry 4.0 solutions to achieve the goals of reducing production costs, improving overall operational efficiency and increasing revenue. Hospitals, retailers, data centers, commercial buildings, and universities often implement iEMS with a focus on effective energy management and ESG goals for environmental sustainability.

Advantech's iEMS solution helps the industry to green management

　　In terms of factory applications, a world-class passive component manufacturer decided to implement Advantech's iEMS solution in order to accurately grasp production costs and realize systematic preventive maintenance, through which the factory can calculate the energy consumption and carbon emission values of a single work order. In addition, if the machine's energy consumption exceeds the default value, the system automatically notifies the administrator and takes appropriate predictive maintenance measures. In addition, through real-time greenhouse gas emissions reporting, managers can clearly understand whether the KPIs of carbon neutrality goals have been met, and then adjust operational measures when necessary.

In terms of hospital applications, Advantech has also deployed iEMS solutions for two hospitals in Taiwan. One of them was a newly established hospital, so Advantech Industrial Cloud was integrated into the building's intelligent systems at the time of architectural design. This project covers multiple spaces in the hospital, including wards, operating rooms, etc., and involves a variety of equipment, such as boilers, elevators, etc., which is much more complex than other application fields. Advantech's industrial cloud uses a flexible microservices architecture to help hospitals quickly deploy infrastructure and collect data from various parties, so that hospitals can quickly develop energy and building management related applications to meet new needs in the future.

Another hospital with a total of seven buildings, each of which already has various energy management systems, is difficult to accurately grasp the hospital's total energy use and carbon emissions because it cannot be centrally managed. In order to comply with government energy usage standards and achieve the hospital's ESG goals, the hospital implemented Advantech's iEMS solution, which can now centrally manage various subsystems in each building, such as energy management and work order systems, and accurately calculate the energy consumption of the entire hospital. In addition, iEMS provides more granular data to calculate overall carbon emissions compared to legacy systems. What's more, the WISE-PaaS platform ensures the flexibility and scalability of the system, so that hospitals can scale applications based on demand and have an overview of all facilities, avoiding management hurdles caused by information silos.

In order to meet the needs of more scenarios for smart energy management, Advantech will continue to expand the capabilities of its iEMS solutions in the future, such as incorporating more digital modules for different types of devices, or exploring technological innovations in renewable energy generation and storage, and working with more partners to move towards the goal of net-zero emissions.

　　Article source: Advantech Smart Earth

Advantech's iEMS solution helps the industry to green management

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