Starting point: electricity bill without context
A Valencia plant manufacturing metal components for the automotive sector consumed 2.4 GWh per year. The maintenance team received the monthly bill but had no way of knowing which line consumed the most, during which shift demand peaked, or what the real power factor was on each panel. They also had a pending ISO 50001 certification commitment, which requires a structured metering system with documented baselines and identified significant energy uses.
Without instrumentation, certification was unworkable. And without visibility, inefficiencies kept adding to the bill month after month.
Solution: EcoStruxure Building Operation + PowerLogic PM5330
We designed a three-tier energy metering system based on Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Building Operation (EBO):
- Field: 14 PowerLogic PM5330 meters on the main distribution panels (voltage, current, power, harmonics, power factor) and 8 iEM3355 meters on sub-panels of the highest-consumption machines.
- Control: EBO server consolidating data from all meters via Modbus TCP, calculating energy KPIs (kWh/shift, kWh/part produced) and managing peak demand and power quality alarms.
- Supervision: web dashboards accessible from the plant floor without additional software, OPC-UA integration with the existing WinCC SCADA, and automatic monthly PDF reports for the ISO 50001 dossier.
EBO was chosen over other platforms for its native support of PowerLogic meters, per-server licensing with no per-tag cost, and the ability to publish data via OPC-UA to the already-installed WinCC production system.
Results after twelve months
Granular consumption visibility uncovered three inefficiencies invisible without instrumentation:
- Idle consumption: weekend electrical demand represented 18% of weekly total consumption. HVAC units and auxiliary compressors were not switching off at shift changeover. Reprogramming their timers saved 87 MWh per year.
- Poor power factor: the heat treatment furnace operated at PF 0.78. Installing a 60 kVAr capacitor bank improved PF to 0.97 and eliminated reactive energy penalties.
- Peak-tariff start-ups: two large presses were regularly starting during the most expensive tariff band. A 20-minute stagger at the beginning of the shift reduced contracted maximum demand by 38 kW.
Total verified energy savings reached 23%. The plant achieved ISO 50001 certification four months after go-live, using the EBO automatic reports as documentary evidence. Return on investment was reached at 15.8 months on a project cost of €68,400.
Does your plant need energy visibility?
If your facility consumes more than 500 MWh per year and you do not have a structured metering system, you are likely losing between 10% and 25% to invisible inefficiencies. At Bluemation we are EcoStruxure Building Operation integrators in Spain. Tell us about your project and we will analyse without obligation which architecture makes most sense for your plant.