Energy Monitoring Appliance

Along with the sensor, the new appliance comes with a variety of monitoring interfaces and data integration options that allow energy data to be pushed to enterprise business systems. The first interface directly connects to and measures the electrical load of both individual power panels and sub-panels, and key facility equipment, such as machinery, pumps, motors, refrigeration systems, boilers, chillers and HVAC units. To provide connectivity to existing monitoring devices and instrumentation, the sensor uses serial and Ethernet interfaces. It can monitor and communicate via Modbus and BACnet protocol, and also can monitor and accept pulses from utility meters and sub-metering devices. The sensor can also send energy data to online energy monitoring software portals, such as Google PowerMeter and Pulse Energy's Pulse for presentation and analysis to local databases. Opto 22's Arun Sinha, director of business development, says,"The energy data allows facility and plant managers to correlate manufacturing energy usage with production volumes and business managers can enact procedural and operational changes that lower utility bills." The sensor is based on the same technology used for the company's SNAP PAC System and uses the "standards-based" approach for interoperability in a variety of industrial and business architectures. Opto 22www.opto22.comFor more energy management content, click here.