Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EFICONSUMPTION (Innovative System for Electrical Energy Efficiency in industrial plants)

Teaser

\"EFICONSUMPTION is focused on the development and further commercialization of an innovative system able to reduce the electricity consumption in industries in a percentage up to 40%, related in terms of unitary energy cost, by means of an optimal measurement, monitoring...

Summary

\"EFICONSUMPTION is focused on the development and further commercialization of an innovative system able to reduce the electricity consumption in industries in a percentage up to 40%, related in terms of unitary energy cost, by means of an optimal measurement, monitoring, smart modelling, remote control and horizontal scalable management of industrial plant production and service processes. The new solution is a combination of a specific device able to measure the main electricity parameters at any place, and an expert system, which will receive the real time data and will be able to establish efficient consumption patterns to effectively reduce the electricity consumption, in accordance with the international standard ISO 50001. This reduction will also contribute to reduce carbon footprint and emissions.

The specific objectives of the EFICONSUMPTION SME INTRSUMENT PHASE 1 were the following:
•To develop a business plan, adjusted to the technical and commercial features of the project, including the assessment of the cost‐effectiveness and exploitation potential of the envisaged solution.
•To tackle the main bottlenecks and barriers for the full commercialization of the innovative technologies, mainly related to legislative and regulatory aspects in each country.
•To widely disseminate project outcomes to stakeholders and end‐users, strengthening synergies with other initiatives and platforms to reach the maximum impact.
•To analyse the market and business strategies in the Electrical Energy Efficiency sector in order to find the best combination of external agents and international entities to develop cooperation strategies for market exploitation and further products commercialization.

According to the concept of \"\"Technology Readiness Levels\"\" (TRL), EFICONSUMPTION is currently situated in TRL6, meaning that the technologies to be used and implemented within the project have already been developed and validated at lab-scale and in a relevant environment. The challenge now is related to the demonstration in an industrial environmental, performing the scaling-up of the material and the further market introduction and replication. At this stage, CYSNERGY is able to show the concept to potential stakeholders. Therefore we are developing a detailed business plan and feasibility study for further exploitation opportunities in the market.

The basic technological components have been integrated with reasonably realistic supporting elements. Then, they have been tested in a simulated environment. Tests have been done into laboratory pilot production plants to generate feedback as well as to solve some technical problems: accuracy, electromagnetic interference, heating of the system, software stability, etc. However, the prototype system must be adapted to each target sector, not only because user specifications will be different, but also because environmental conditions will determine the service life of the measurement devices. Thus, CYSNERGY plans to test the system in industrial plants to establish the durability and reliability of the product at long-term. Furthermore, CYSNERGY needs to establish business alliances with technological partners to start the subsequent industrial production and product design process to make the product more consistent and profitable according with the actual market potential.
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Work performed

\"Taking into account this context, the efforts were focused on the development of a technical and economic feasibility study of the proposed solutions.
The first stage of the project was the \"\"Technical assessment and feasibility of the concept\"\". CYSNERGY has developed a repository of product design modifications to adapt the system not only to specific industrial environments but also to end user real needs. In this sense, CYSNERGY has conducted 100 end users surveys to determine key specifications of the commercial versions. These surveys we carried out not only using an email campaign but also organising different workshops at CYSNERGY facilities. The survey harvested information about: i) the satisfaction of customers with energy efficient systems available on the market; ii) the customer product evaluation; iii) Additional functionalities which could include the system; iv) Customer intention to buy the EFICONSUMPTION system; v)Maximum price that they would pay to acquire the proposed system.
The main conclusions are the following:
-Most of the users consider that the degree of development in other existing commercial solutions for electric energy efficiency must be improved; they should provide clearer information about real savings like EFICONSUMPTION does.
-No one of surveyed electrical installers knew a system able to measure the voltage at any point plugin directly on the electrical wiring “Voltimetric Technology”. There, this feature can be considered as really disruptive and it is one of the bases of our patent in EU and USA.
-Several respondents agree that CYSNERGY should improve the design of the wire connectors to make it more robust and watertight (this issue will be improved during SME instrument phase 2).
-Respondents generally would purchase the system if the total cost per Measurement & Management Point is less than 1000 € (this information is crucial to estimate the market product price).
-Small consumers greatly would appreciate if it is possible to acquire the entire system or contract an ESCO Support (success fee service) for which the system is installed for free and the company shares the benefits from cost savings.
-CYSCLOUD functions of the application should be improved for the commercial version in order to be able to create different user profiles and more personalized dashboards.
After customer needs detection, it has been studied the scalability of the industrial production process to be implemented related to expected sales. In this sense it was necessary to create multidisciplinary control quality circles with stakeholders to develop quality standards for raw components and assemblies.

It is expected to reach the whole Electrical Energy Efficiency Sector at worldwide level, which is characterised by very high volume, permanent growing and global market. For this reason the use of advanced Electronics manufacturing technologies, as automated printed circuit boards (PCBs) manufacturing line with Surface Mount Technology (SMT) will be crucial because the expected manufacturing requirements are extraordinary.
However, the cost in time and money for the development and initial implementation of these technologies is very high. Therefore, CYSNERGY has confirmed an initial alliance with his suppliers in order to avoid technological risks and after this initial stage CYSNERGY will gradually acquire own production capacity as the level of sales increases.

SMT is a method for the production of electronic circuits where the components are automatically mounted onto the PCBs. An electronic device produced with this method is called a surface-mount-device (SMD). In the industry it has largely replaced the through-hole technology construction method of fitting components with wire leads into holes in the circuit board. An SMT component is usually smaller than its through-hole counterpart because it has either smaller leads or no leads at all. It may have short pins or leads of various styles,\"

Final results

The main impacts on the users need are the following:

1)Conventional electric network analysers require installation and electric control panel handling (1-2 hours), which involve high installation times and safety concerns. EFICONSUMPTION reduces the installation time to just 15 minutes without manipulating the electric control panel, contributing to the reduction by 70% the installation time and simultaneously increasing the productivity and safety of the operator.
2)Manufacturers have difficulties to calculate electric production direct costs because they ignore the energy consumption of the equipment directly involved in specific product processing. But EFICONSUMPTION can be easily connected to electric cables of any productive equipment, bringing high flexibility to the systems.
3)Enterprises have problems to optimize electricity costs through production planning and procurement of different electrical rates because they ignore their instant consumption on each location. EFICONSUMPTION is the only system that provides instantaneous real parameters, historical data and it has the capacity to simulate future scenarios to different end users.
4)Some facilities suffer electric overloads and imbalances that increase the resultant bill and can cause breakdowns. EFICONSUMPTION will protect the facilities and it will disconnect equipment that endangers the installation. Also, it will be an expert system that advises the user on appropriate strategies to reduce costs
The market of the EFICONSUMPTION system is the electrical energy efficiency sector, which joins together several specific characteristics: very high volume ((1 million of millions € per year are billed by the Utilities to his customers yearly all over the world / 1 x 1012 €); permanent growing; and global market.
EFICONSUMPTION system can be applied to every area with significant electricity consumption. However, the selected area for market penetration will be the industrial sector, which represents, according to recent data , approximately 36,5% of the total energy consumption in Europe. The main reason behind this selection is based on the high sensitivity in the industry to the electricity and energy prices, and the continuous search for cost savings. The full implementation of EFICONSUMPTION system would allow industries to reduce overall electricity consumption in percentages up to 40%, as confirmed by several success cases with preindustrial prototypes. Therefore, although the application areas are very wide, it will be selected those industrial sectors with high energy-intensive needs, with accounts with higher potential savings. After full introduction in industrial sector, it is expected to diversify towards domestic markets, representing almost another 30% of the total consumption

Website & more info

More info: http://www.cysnergy.com.