Schneider introduces digital architecture for energy management in buildings

Schneider  Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, recently announced the introduction of EcoStruxure Power, a digital architecture for energy management in buildings that delivers significantly enhanced value to professionals in the power industry, including contractors, consulting engineers, panel builders and their end customers.

With open integration, real-time operations and analytics and increased levels of cyber security, the next generation architecture enables power users to make the most of new opportunities created by intelligent devices and digitization to deliver improved reliability, safety, efficiency, sustainability and connectivity for customers across multiple industries.

EcoStruxure Power is part of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure architecture, an open and interoperable system architecture for building, grid, industry, and data center customers. It brings together the company’s industry leading connected products, edge control, apps, analytics and services into a connected and integrated framework for all areas of the power distribution and management chains.

“One impact of IoT is that customers are going to expect buildings to be smart. They’re going to demand data-driven solutions that improve energy and operational efficiencies, facility planning, preventative maintenance, fault detection, occupant comfort, and safety in buildings…but this requires more than sensors. You need data integration. The data may be in various formats, with different naming conventions and syntaxes coming from a variety of devices, sensors and systems” said Edouard Heripret, General Manager, Schneider Electric East Africa. Adding, “We are leveraging advances in IoT, mobility, sensing, cloud, analytics, and cyber security technologies into a set of connected tools for the power management industry. By acting on data in real time from any number of IoT-enabled sources, our customers can improve operational and energy efficiency and bring their operations directly into the future.”

In large and critical buildings, uptime is paramount. At many large facilities, for example, power outages can cost more than $1 million+ per day while endangering the lives of employees and visitors. In addition, operations and maintenance costs can represent as much as 80 percent of the total lifecycle cost over a 50-year period. EcoStruxure Power improves power availability and safety in such buildings by monitoring the entire network and boosting protection against shock, fire, and explosion.

In large industrial facilities, reliability is paramount for ensuring productivity and operational efficiency. Moreover, for companies looking to expand, a high level of productivity and efficiency can be the keys that unlock growth. Equipped with the proper data, insight, and optimization, industrial facilities can ease the cost of expansion and open new avenues of innovation.

One Schneider Electric customer, a paper mill, estimates that it saved over $1 million in the construction of their new co-generation plants. Extensive monitoring, analysis, and control were used to optimize the electrical systems and avoid unnecessary downtime. Thanks to EcoStruxure Power Management software, they could improve site planning and operational reliability for the expansion of their facilities.

In addition, because small and medium buildings usually have limited staff on site, EcoStruxure Power also provides simple cloud-based tools to make it easy to automate more reliable maintenance operations and quickly apply corrective action in case of an outage. For example, facility or property managers can receive automatic outage notifications and monitor energy consumption through a simple dashboard.

One Schneider Electric customer realized 30 percent savings by installing connected panels, monitoring them, and applying corrective actions based on an analysis of the received data. Another customer receives automatic outage notifications for 60 connected facilities and can track energy consumption through a simple dashboard.

“Our customers realize they can unlock new levels of efficiency and create a competitive differentiation by leveraging the new opportunities created by digitization and IoT,” concluded Mr Heripret. “EcoStruxure Power gives them scalable, measurable, agile solutions to work with and succeed in today’s fast paced digital world.”

EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric’s open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architecture delivering enhanced value around safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity for our customers. EcoStruxure leverages technologies in IoT, mobility, sensing, cloud, analytics, and cybersecurity to deliver Innovation at Every Level including Connected Products, Edge Control, and Apps, Analytics & Services. EcoStruxure has been deployed in 450,000+ installations, with the support of 9,000 system integrators, connecting over 1 billion devices. For more information about EcoStruxure, please read about EcoStruxure here.