Energisparläge i automationsindustrin : Potential för att minska tomgångsförluster med industriella styrsystem

Former studies have shown that a considerable part of industries’ energy usage can stem from idle times in the production. This thesis, carried out at Siemens Industry sector, evaluates the potential for using the control system to automatically put machines into energy saving mode during idle times. The main part of the thesis consists of a case study performed on machine tools at a Scania production site in Södertälje. Through load measurements the potential for energy savings was determined. The results show that there is a great potential for energy savings during idle times at the site. 20 to 50 percent of the machines’ energy usage can be reduced if they are put into energy saving mode when they are not used. However, the implementation of pause management in an existing control system is often too expensive to be motivated alone. Instead this should be considered before overhauls or rebuilds of machines and production sites. Another way of reducing costs can be to use a standard for pause management like PROFIenergy. A general conclusion is that industries with discrete manufacturing and long pause times have a great potential for energy savings. The same holds for machines with position control, such as robots and machine tools. The thesis also highlights the need for proper energy measurements at a production site in order to evaluate the potential for and results of an energy efficiency measure