Developing permanent energy monitoring capabilities is a complex undertaking – requiring careful hardware considerations and an accompanying digital infrastructure. In response, NCC has developed a testbed and new digital capabilities to help manufacturers and technology providers explore solutions.
Why energy monitoring?
When combined with other streams, data captured from permanent energy monitoring makes it easier for organisations to fulfil sustainability obligations, in addition to providing insights to help reduce costs.
Sustainability measures such as Life Cycle Analysis (LCAs) and product carbon accounting are set to become non-negotiable requirements – as legislators, investors, and consumers demand accountability for a product's environmental impact.
Challenge - Maximising the value of energy data
As part of the Manufacturing Energy Toolkit project from the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, NCC installed energy monitoring sensors on factory equipment for a group of UK SMEs. In this trial project, the data obtained was used to identify that:
-
One business could save £1,100 per annum simply by switching off machines overnight
-
Another company had a machine with significantly higher consumption than others (later prioritised for reducing costs)
-
A third manufacturer had a machine with a phase imbalance requiring further analysis and repair
The project demonstrated how energy use data can reduce business costs, identify opportunities for efficiencies, and flag equipment issues before they become critical.
However, this example of energy monitoring is limited in nature: a single sensor in isolation cannot recognise or account for changes in a machine’s use.
To harness energy data for carbon accounting, it must be also combined with other data streams (such as cycle start/stop times or product ID) to contextualise energy use.
Innovation - Sensor hardware and digital infrastructure
As part of NCC’s Capability Development and Core technology programmes, our engineers installed energy monitoring sensors on nine machines across our R&D facility, with data feeding into a digital infrastructure.
Energy monitoring sensors are not one-size-fits-all. The team deployed a range of different sensors across the facility, balancing considerations such as machine type, sensor complexity, and desired data to identify the most suitable hardware.
Crucially, the sensors were integrated with NCC’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform, built to ingest and standardise energy use data (in addition to other digital engineering applications).
Due to the range of sensors used, it was essential that the platform could handle data in multiple formats and via a range of communication protocols.
By processing and standardising captured data, energy consumption can be compared across the facility and combined with other data streams.
Impact - Cost savings, insights and compliance
Energy usage is an essential dataset for LCAs - and permanent energy monitoring enables continuous data capture for scope 1 and 2 embodied carbon reporting. It helps businesses to determine the embodied carbon of individual products or wider operations.
Permanent energy monitoring can also surface insights to drive efficiencies and reduce costs:
- Predictive maintenance – Continuous energy data can be compared in real-time across a facility to identify individual machines with drops in performance.
- Efficiency insights – Energy use data for an individual machine can be compared against other data points to highlight manufacturing inefficiencies.
- Whole facility energy insights - Site-wide energy use data can inform decision making and investments around electricity tariffs, solar or wind installations, and more.
Next steps – A digital testbed for innovation
Joseph Reffitt, Deputy Chief Engineer, Digital at NCC said:
“Through the successful implementation of permanent energy monitoring at NCC, we have created a unique, open access testbed for manufacturers and technology providers to do the same. It enables businesses to de-risk energy monitoring investments by conducting tests in a representative environment.
Our digital expertise and insights from this project also allow NCC to offer impartial advice on the often confusing issue of sensor selection – as well as considerations around an accompanying digital infrastructure – that fit your business needs and environmental goals.”
Contact our digital team to learn more about energy monitoring at NCC. You can also explore our sustainability and digital transformation services.