IoT-Based energy monitoring in production

The importance of energy-efficient production is constantly increasing in times of climate change and shrinking resources. Growing awareness of environmental issues has led to the increased use of renewable energies and energy-saving measures in many branches of industry. Industry faces the challenge of further reducing energy consumption in order to minimize environmental impact and meet the requirements of sustainable production. Advances in technology, particularly in the area of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), enable companies to monitor energy consumption and take optimization measures based on this. However, there are still challenges related to the complexity of many production systems and their interactions that prevent companies from implementing advanced energy management practices. Accurate monitoring and analysis of energy consumption in this complex environment requires specialized knowledge and technologies. This article first presents a methodical approach to selecting the systems to be monitored and the necessary components for a suitable measurement chain. Various energy indicators and their significance in the production environment are discussed and it is shown how these are generated from the raw data collected as part of edge computing. In the next step, an IoT communication architecture is described with which the recorded energy data is linked to the digital machine twins of the systems. Machine learning methods are then discussed, which are suitable for uncovering weak points and leveraging optimization potential. Finally, the practical example of the energy monitoring of a system for the central compressed air supply of a production hall is used to show the influence of different production processes and their interaction on energy consumption.