Rockwell Automation Plant-wide Energy Optimization Tools Are “Smart-Grid-Ready”

Rockwell Automation has developed a new portfolio of smart, safe and sustainable manufacturing solutions that could help companies save up to $6 billion a year, or about ten percent of the total U.S. industrial electrical energy costs, by capitalizing on “Smart Grid” initiatives with existing technologies.

The new smart, safe and sustainable manufacturing portfolio includes a series of plant-wide energy optimization tools that create an integrated industrial energy management system based on Rockwell Automation industrial automation and information technology. It also will allow manufacturers to perform real-time load-balancing of their industrial processes, bring renewable energy sources online and execute demand response strategies connected to the Smart Grid.

“The manufacturing sector is responsible for almost a third of U.S. energy consumption, primarily by driving loads with electric motors,” said Sujeet Chand, Chief Technology Officer for Rockwell Automation. “While recent ‘Smart Grid’ demonstrations have focused on benefits to homes and commercial buildings, we look forward to working with manufacturers and electric power companies to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as industrial processes consume less electricity.”

Today, manufacturing and information technologies are converging at a rapid pace to create a new industrial renaissance. At the heart of this renaissance are smart manufacturing solutions that blend the best in people, physical assets, business processes and data, and seamlessly connect the plant floor to the enterprise, the supply chain and the customer. This advanced integration helps businesses achieve higher levels of productivity and competitiveness. Using existing industrial automation and information technology with these new advances, manufacturers can view, control and optimize plant-wide energy use today and be “Smart-Grid-Ready.”

“Until now, manufacturers had to make decisions without knowing how energy directly affects their production costs and impacts the bottom line,” said Terry Gebert, Vice President and General Manager of Rockwell Automation Global Solutions.